THE  LIBRARIES 


HOME  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
OF  MODERN  KNOWLEDGE 

No.  92 

Editors : 

HERBERT    FISHER,  M.A.,  F.B.A. 
Prof.    GILBERT    MURRAY,    Litt.D., 

LL.D.,  F.B.A. 
Prof.  J.  ARTHUR    THOMSON,  M.A. 
Prof.  WILLIAM    T.  BREWSTER,  M.A, 


A  complete  classified  list  of  the  volumes  of  The 
Home  University  Library  already  published 
will  be  found  at  the  back  of  this  book. 


THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

BY 
D.  G.  HOGARTH,  M.A.,  F.B.A.,  F.S.A 

KEEPER  OF  THE  ASHMOLEAN  MUSEUM,  OXFORD; 

AUTHOR  OF   "  IONIA  AND   THE   EAST," 

"the  NEARER  EAST,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY    HOLT    AND    COMPANY 

LONDON 

WILLIAMS   AND    NORGATE 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTORY    . 
I      THE   EAST   IN    1000    B.C. 
II      THE   EAST   IN    800    B.C. 

III  THE   EAST   IN    600    B.C. 

IV  THE    EAST   IN    400    B.C. 

V      THE   VICTORY    OF   THE   WEST 
VI      EPILOGUE    .  .  .  . 

NOTE   ON   BOOKS 
INDEX  .... 


PAQK 

9 
21 
65 
101 
149 
193 
218 
252 
254 


LIST  OF  MAPS 


PLATE  PAOB 

1.  THE  REGION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  EAST  AND 

ITS   MAIN   DIVISIONS      ....  19 

2.  ASIATIC  EMPIRE  OF  EGYPT.      TEMP.  AMEN- 

HETEP   III  .....         33 

3.  HATTI   EMPIRE  AT  ITS  GREATEST  EXTENT. 

EARLY    13th    CENTURY   B.C.  .  .         37 

4.  ASSYRIAN       EMPIRE      AT      ITS      GREATEST 

EXTENT.       EARLY     YEARS     OF     ASHUR- 
BANIPAL      ......       113 

5.  PERSIAN  EMPIRE  (wEST)  AT  ITS  GREATEST 

EXTENT.      TEMP.    DARIUS   HYSTASPIS      .       175 

6.  HELLENISM   IN  ASIA.      ABOUT   150   B.C.     .      225 


THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

INTRODUCTORY 

The  title  of  this  book  needs  a  word  of 
explanation,  since  each  of  its  terms  can 
legitimately  be  used  to  denote  more  than 
one  conception  both  of  time  and  place. 
*'  The  East  "  is  understood  widely  and  vaguely 
nowadays  to  include  all  the  continent  and 
islands  of  Asia,  some  part  of  Africa — the 
northern  part  where  society  and  conditions 
of  life  are  most  like  the  Asiatic — and  some 
regions  also  of  South-Eastern  and  Eastern 
Europe.  Therefore  it  may  appear  arbitrary 
to  restrict  it  in  the  present  book  to  Western 
Asia.  But  the  qualifying  term  in  my  title 
must  be  invoked  in  justification.  It  is  the 
East  not  of  to-day  but  of  antiquity  with 
which  I  have  to  deal,  and,  therefore,  I 
plead  that  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  under- 
stand by  "  The  East  "  what  in  antiquity 
European  historians  understood  by  that  term. 


10  THE   ANCIENT  EAST 

To  Herodotus  and  his  contemporary  Greeks 
Egypt,  Arabia  and  India  were  the  South; 
Thrace  and  Scythia  were  the  North;  and 
Hither  Asia  was  the  East  :  for  they  conceived 
nothing  beyond  except  the  fabled  stream  of 
Ocean.  It  can  be  pleaded  also  that  my 
restriction,  while  not  in  itself  arbitrary, 
does,  in  fact,  obviate  an  otherwise  inevitable 
obligation  to  fix  arbitrary  bounds  to  the 
East.  For  the  term,  as  used  in  modern 
times,  implies  a  geographical  area  character- 
ized by  society  of  a  certain  general  type,  and 
according  to  his  opinion  of  this  type,  each 
person,  who  thinks  or  writes  of  the  East, 
expands  or  contracts  its  geographical  area. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  justify  the  restric- 
tion which  will  be  imposed  in  the  following 
chapters  on  the  word  Ancient.  This  term 
is  used  even  more  vaguely  and  variously 
than  the  other.  If  generally  it  connotes  the 
converse  of  "  Modern,"  in  some  connections 
and  particularly  in  the  study  of  history 
the  Modern  is  not  usually  understood  to  begin 
where  the  Ancient  ended  but  to  stand  only  for 
the  comparatively  Recent.  For  example,  in 
History,  the  ill-defined  period  called  the  Middle 
and  Dark  Ages  makes  a  considerable  hiatus 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

before,  in  the  process  of  retrospection,  we  get 
back  to  a  civilization  which  (in  Europe  at 
least)  we  ordinarily  regard  as  Ancient.  Again, 
in  History,  we  distinguish  commonly  two 
provinces  within  the  undoubted  area  of  'the 
Ancient,  the  Prehistoric  and  the  Historic,  the 
first  comprising  all  the  time  to  which  human 
memory,  as  communicated  by  surviving  litera- 
ture, ran  not,  or,  at  least,  not  consciously,  con- 
sistently and  credibly.  At  the  same  time  it  is 
not  implied  that  we  can  have  no  knowledge  at 
all  of  the  Prehistoric  province.  It  may  even  be 
better  known  to  us  than  parts  of  the  Historic, 
through  sure  deduction  from  archaeological 
evidence.  But  what  we  learn  from  archaeo- 
logical records  is  annalistic  not  historic,  since 
such  records  have  not  passed  through  the 
transforming  crucible  of  a  human  intelligence 
which  reasons  on  events  as  effects  of  causes. 
The  boundary  between  Prehistoric  and 
Historic,  however,  depends  too  much  on  the 
subjectivity  of  individual  historians  and  is 
too  apt  to  vary  with  the  progress  of  research 
to  be  a  fixed  moment.  Nor  can  it  be  the 
same  for  all  civilizations.  As  regards  Egypt, 
for  example,  we  have  a  body  of  literary 
tradition    which    can    reasonably    be    called 


12  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

Historic,  relating  to  a  time  much  earlier  than 
is  reached  by  respectable  literary  tradition  of 
Elam  and  Babylonia,  though  their  civilizations 
were  probably  older  than  the  Egyptian. 

For  the  Ancient  East  as  here  understood, 
we  possess  two  bodies  of  historic  literary 
tradition  and  two  only,  the  Greek  and  the 
Hebrew;  and  as  it  happens,  both  (though 
each  is  independent  of  the  other)  lose 
consistency  and  credibility  when  they  deal 
with  history  before  1000  B.C.  Moreover, 
Prof.  Myres  has  covered  the  prehistoric 
period  in  the  East  in  his  brilliant  Dawn  of 
History,  Therefore,  on  all  accounts,  in  treat- 
ing of  the  historic  period,  I  am  absolved  from 
looking  back  more  than  a  thousand  years 
before  our  era. 

It  is  not  so  obvious  where  I  may  stop. 
The  overthrow  of  Persia  by  Alexander,  con- 
sunmiating  a  long  stage  in  a  secular  contest, 
which  it  is  my  main  business  to  describe, 
marks  an  epoch  more  sharply  than  any  other 
single  event  in  the  history  of  the  Ancient 
East.  But  there  are  grave  objections  to 
breaking  off  abruptly  at  that  date.  The 
reader  can  hardly  close  a  book  which  ends 
then,  with  any  other  impression  than  that 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

since  the  Greek  has  put  the  East  under  his 
feet,  the  history  of  the  centuries,  which  have 
still  to  elapse  before  Rome  shall  take  over 
Asia,  will  simply  be  Greek  history  writ  large — 
the  history  of  a  Greater  Greece  which  has  ex- 
panded over  the  ancient  East  and  caused  it 
to  lose  its  distinction  from  the  ancient  West. 
Yet  this  impression  does  not  by  any  means 
coincide  with  historical  truth.  The  Mace- 
donian conquest  of  Hither  Asia  was  a  victory 
won  by  men  of  Greek  civilization,  but  only 
to  a  very  partial  extent  a  victory  of  that 
civilization.  The  West  did  not  assimilate 
the  East  except  in  very  small  measure  then, 
and  has  not  assimilated  it  in  any  very  large 
measure  to  this  day.  For  certain  reasons, 
among  which  some  geographical  facts — the 
large  proportion  of  steppe-desert  and  of  the 
human  type  which  such  country  breeds — 
are  perhaps  the  most  powerful,  the  East  is 
obstinately  unreceptive  of  western  influences, 
and  more  than  once  it  has  taken  its  captors 
captive.  Therefore,  while,  for  the  sake  of  con- 
venience and  to  avoid  entanglement  in  the  very 
ill-known  maze  of  what  is  called  "  Hellenistic" 
history,  I  shall  not  attempt  to  follow  the 
consecutive  course  of  events  after  330  B.C.,  I 


14  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

propose  to  add  an  epilogue  which  may  prepare 
readers  for  what  was  destined  to  come  out  of 
Western  Asia  after  the  Christian  era,  and 
enable  them  to  understand  in  particular  the 
religious  conquest  of  the  West  by  the  East. 
This  has  been  a  more  momentous  fact  in 
the  history  of  the  world  than  any  political 
conquest  of  the  East  by  the  West. 

In  the  further  hope  of  enabling  readers  to 
retain  a  clear  idea  of  the  evolution  of  the 
history,  I  have  adopted  the  plan  of  looking 
out  over  the  area  which  is  here  called  the 
East,  at  certain  intervals,  rather  than  the 
alternative  and  more  usual  plan  of  consider- 
ing events  consecutively  in  each  several  part 
of  that  area.  Thus,  without  repetition  and 
overlapping,  one  may  expect  to  convey  a 
sense  of  the  history  of  the  whole  East  as 
the  sum  of  the  histories  of  particular  parts. 
The  occasions  on  which  the  surveys  will 
be  taken  are  purely  arbitrary  chronological 
points  two  centuries  apart.  The  years  1000, 
800,  600,  400  B.C.  are  not,  any  of  them, 
distinguished  by  known  events  of  the  kind 
that  is  called  epoch-making;  nor  have  round 
numbers  been  chosen  for  any  peculiar  historic 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

significance.  They  might  just  as  well  have 
been  1001,  801  and  so  forth,  or  any  other 
dates  divided  by  equal  intervals.  Least  of 
all  is  any  mysterious  virtue  to  be  attached 
to  the  millenary  date  with  which  I  begin. 
But  it  is  a  convenient  starting-point,  not 
only  for  the  reason  already  stated,  that 
Greek  literary  memory — ^the  only  literary 
memory  of  antiquity  worth  anything  for 
early  history — goes  back  to  about  that 
date;  but  also  because  the  year  1000  B.C. 
falls  within  a  period  of  disturbance  during 
which  certain  racial  elements  and  groups, 
destined  to  exert  predominant  influence  on 
subsequent  history,  were  settling  down  into 
their  historic  homes. 

A  westward  and  southward  movement  of 
peoples,  caused  by  some  obscure  pressure 
from  the  north-west  and  north-east,  which 
had  been  disturbing  eastern  and  central  Asia 
Minor  for  more  than  a  century  and  apparently 
had  brought  to  an  end  the  supremacy  of  the 
Cappadocian  Hatti,  was  quieting  down,  leav- 
ing the  western  peninsula  broken  up  into 
small  principalities.  Indirectly  the  same 
movement  had  brought  about  a  like  result  in 
northern  Syria.     A  still  more  important  move- 


16  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

ment  of  Iranian  peoples  from  the  farther 
East  had  ended  in  the  coalescence  of  two 
considerable  social  groups,  each  containing 
the  germs  of  higher  development,  on  the 
north-eastern  and  eastern  fringes  of  the  old 
Mesopotamian  sphere  of  influence.  These 
were  the  Medic  and  the  Persian.  A  little 
earlier,  a  period  of  unrest  in  the  Sj^rian 
and  Arabian  deserts,  marked  by  intermit- 
tent intrusions  of  nomads  into  the  western 
fringe -lands,  had  ended  in  the  formation  of 
new  Semitic  states  in  all  parts  of  Syria 
from  Shamal  in  the  extreme  north-west 
(perhaps  even  from  Cilicia  beyond  Amanus) 
to  Hamath,  Damascus  and  Palestine.  Finally 
there  is  this  justification  for  not  trying  to 
push  the  history  of  the  Asiatic  East  much 
behind  1000  B.C. — that  nothing  like  a  sure 
chronological  basis  of  it  exists  before  that 
date.  Precision  in  the  dating  of  events  in 
West  Asia  begins  near  the  end  of  the  tenth 
century  with  the  Assyrian  Eponym  lists,  that 
is,  lists  of  annual  chief  officials;  while  for 
Babylonia  there  is  no  certain  chronology  till 
nearly  two  hundred  years  later.  In  Hebrew 
history  sure  chronological  ground  is  not 
reached  till  the  Assyrian  records  themselves 


INTRODUCTORY  17 

begin  to  touch  upon  it  during  the  reign  of 
Ahab  over  Israel.  For  all  the  other  social 
groups  and  states  of  Western  Asia  we  have  to 
depend  on  more  or  less  loose  and  inferential 
synchronisms  with  Assyrian,  Babylonian  or 
Hebrew  chronology,  except  for  some  rare 
events  whose  dates  may  be  inferred  from  the 
alien  histories  of  Egypt  and  Greece. 

The  area,  whose  social  state  we  shall  survey 
in  1000  B.C.  and  re-survey  at  intervals,  con- 
tains Western  Asia  bounded  eastwards  by  an 
imaginary  line  drawn  from  the  head  of  the 
Persian  Gulf  to  the  Caspian  Sea.  This  line, 
however,  is  not  to  be  drawn  rigidly  straight, 
but  rather  should  describe  a  shallow  outward 
curve,  so  as  to  include  in  the  Ancient  East 
all  Asia  situated  on  this  side  of  the  salt 
deserts  of  central  Persia.  This  area  is  marked 
off  by  seas  on  three  sides  and  by  desert  on 
the  fourth  side.  Internally  it  is  distinguished 
into  some  six  divisions  either  by  unusually 
strong  geographical  boundaries  or  by  large 
differences  of  geographical  character.  These 
divisions  are  as  follows — 

(1)  A  western  peninsular  projection, 
bounded  by  seas  on  three  sides  and  divided 


18  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

from  the  rest  of  the  continent  by  high  and 
very  broad  mountain  masses,  which  has  been 
named,  not  inappropriately,  Asia  Minor, 
since  it  displays,  in  many  respects,  an  epitome 
of  the  general  characteristics  of  the  continent. 
(2)  A  tangled  mountainous  region  filling 
almost  all  the  rest  of  the  northern  part  of 
the  area  and  sharply  distinct  in  character  not 
only  from  the  plateau  land  of  Asia  Minor  to 
the  west  but  also  from  the  great  plain  lands 
of  steppe  character  lying  to  the  south,  north 
and  east.  This  has  perhaps  never  had  a 
single  name,  though  the  bulk  of  it  has  been 
included  in  "  Urartu  "  (Ararat),  "  Armenia  " 
or  "  Kurdistan  "  at  various  epochs ;  but  for 
convenience  we  shall  call  it  Armenia.  (3)  A 
narrow  belt  running  south  from  both  the 
former  divisions  and  distinguished  from  them 
by  much  lower  general  elevation.  Bounded 
on  the  west  by  the  sea  and  on  the  south  and 
east  by  broad  tracts  of  desert,  it  has,  since 
Greek  times  at  least,  been  generally  known  as 
Syria.  (4)  A  great  southern  peninsula  largely 
desert,  lying  high  and  fringed  by  sands  on  the 
land  side,  which  has  been  called,  ever  since 
antiquity,  Arabia.  (5)  A  broad  tract  stretch- 
ing into  the  continent  between  Armenia  and 


19 


20  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

Arabia  and  containing  the  middle  and  lower 
basins  of  the  twin  rivers,  Euphrates  and 
Tigris,  which,  rising  in  Armenia,  drain  the 
greater  part  of  the  whole  area.  It  is  of  diversi- 
fied sm-face,  ranging  from  sheer  desert  in  the 
west  and  centre,  to  great  fertility  in  its  eastern 
parts;  but,  until  it  begins  to  rise  northward 
towards  the  frontier  of  "  Armenia  "  and  east- 
ward towards  that  of  the  sixth  division,  about 
to  be  described,  it  maintains  a  generally  low 
elevation.  No  common  name  has  ever  in- 
cluded all  its  parts,  both  the  inter  flu  vial 
region  and  the  districts  beyond  Tigris;  but 
since  the  term  Mesopotamia,  though  obviously 
incorrect,  is  generally  understood  nowadays 
to  designate  it,  this  name  may  be  used  "for 
want  of  a  better.  (6)  A  high  plateau,  walled 
off  from  Mesopotamia  and  Armenia  by  high 
mountain  chains,  and  extending  back  to  the 
desert  limits  of  the  Ancient  East.  To  this 
region,  although  it  comprises  only  the  western 
part  of  what  should  be  understood  by  /ran, 
this  name  may  be  appropriated  "  without 
prejudice." 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C. 

In  1000  B.C.  West  Asia  was  a  mosaic  of 
small  states  and  contained,  so  far  as  we^^^ 
know,  no  imperial  power  holding  wide 
dominion  over  aliens.  Seldom  in  its  history 
could  it  so  be  described.  Since  it  became 
predominantly  Semitic,  over  a  thousand  years 
before  our  survey,  it  had  fallen  under  simul- 
taneous or  successive  dominations,  exercised 
from  at  least  three  regions  within  itself  and 
from  one  without. 

§  1.  Babylonian  Empire 

The  earliest  of  these  centres  of  power  to 

develop  foreign  empire  was  also  that  destined, 

after   many   vicissitudes,    to    hold   it   latest, 

because  it  was  the  best  endowed  by  nature  to 

repair  the  waste  which  empire  entails.     This 

was  the  region  which  would  be  known  later  as 
21 


22  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

Babylonia  from  the  name  of  the  city  which  in 
historic  times  dominated  it,  but,,  as  we  now 
know,  was  neither  an  early  seat  of  power  nor 
the  parent  of  its  distinctive  local  civilization. 
This  honour,  if  due  to  any  one  city,  should  be 
credited  to  Ur,  whose  also  was  the  first  and 
the  only  truly  "  Babylonian  "  empire.  The 
primacy  of  Babylonia  had  not  been  the  work 
of  its  aboriginal  Sumerian  population,  the 
authors  of  what  was  highest  in  the  local 
culture,  but  of  Semitic  intruders  from  a 
comparatively  barbarous  region;  nor  again, 
had  it  been  the  work  of  the  earliest  of  these 
intruders  (if  we  follow  those  who  now  deny 
that  the  dominion  of  Sargon  of  Akkad  and 
his  son  Naram-sin  ever  extended  beyond  the 
lower  basins  of  the  Twin  Rivers),  but  of 
peoples  who  entered  with  a  second  series  of 
Semitic  waves.  These  surged  out  of  Arabia, 
eternal  motherland  of  vigorous  migrants,  in 
the  middle  centuries  of  the  third  millennium 
B.C.  While  this  migration  swamped  South 
Syria  with  "  Canaanites,"  it  ultimately  gave 
to  Egypt  the  Hyksos  or  "  Shepherd  Kings," 
to  Assyria  its  permanent  Semitic  population, 
and  to  Sumer  and  Akkad  what  later  chroni- 
clers called  the  First  Babylonian  Dynasty. 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  23 

Since,  however,  those  Semitic  interlopers 
had  no  civiHzation  of  their  own  comparable 
with  either  the  contemporary  Egyptian  or 
the  Sumerian  (long  ago  adopted  by  earlier 
Semitic  immigrants),  they  inevitably  and 
quickly  assimilated  both  these  civilizations  as 
they  settled  down. 

At  the  same  time  they  did  not  lose,  at  least 
not  in  Mesopotamia,  which  was  already  half 
Semitized,  certain  Bedawi  ideas  and  instincts, 
which  would  profoundly  affect  their  later  his- 
tory. Of  these  the  most  important  historically 
was  a  religious  idea  which,  for  want  of  a 
better  term,  may  be  called  Super-Monotheism. 
Often  found  rooted  in  wandering  peoples  and 
apt  long  to  survive  their  nomadic  phase,  it 
consists  in  a  belief  that,  however  many  tribal 
and  local  gods  there  may  be,  one  paramount 
deity  exists  who  is  not  only  singular  and 
indivisible  but  dwells  in  one  spot,  alone  on 
earth.  His  dwelling  may  be  changed  by  a 
movement  of  his  people  en  masse,  but  by 
nothing  less;  and  he  can  have  no  real  rival 
in  supreme  power.  The  fact  that  the  para- 
mount Father-God  of  the  Semites  came 
through  that  migration  en  masse  to  take  up 
his  residence  in  Babylon  and  in  no  other  city 


24  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

of  the  wide  lands  newly  occupied,  caused 
this  city  to  retain  for  many  centuries,  despite 
social  and  political  changes,  a  predominant 
position  not  unlike  that  to  be  held  by 
Holy  Rome  from  the  Dark  Ages  to  modern 
times. 

Secondly  the  Arabs  brought  with  them 
their  immemorial  instinct  of  restlessness. 
This  habit  also  is  apt  to  persist  in  a  settled 
society,  finding  satisfaction  in  annual  re- 
course to  tent  or  hut  life  and  in  annual  pre- 
datory excursions.  The  custom  of  the  razzia 
or  summer  raid,  which  is  still  obligatory  in 
Arabia  on  all  men  of  vigour  and  spirit,  was 
held  in  equal  honour  by  the  ancient  Semitic 
world.  Undertaken  as  a  matter  of  course, 
whether  on  provocation  or  not,  it  was  the 
yorigin  and  constant  spring  of  those  annual 
marches  to  the  frontiers,  of  which  royal 
Assyrian  monuments  vaingloriously  tell  us, 
to  the  exclusion  of  almost  all  other  informa- 
tion. Chederlaomer,  Amraphel  and  the  other 
three  kings  were  fulfilling  their  annual 
obligation  in  the  Jordan  valley  when 
Hebrew  tradition  believed  that  they  met  with 
Abraham ;  and  if,  as  seems  agreed,  Amraphel 
was  Hammurabi  himself,  that  tradition  proves 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  25 

the    custom    of    the    razzia   well    established 
under  the  First  Babylonian  Dynasty. 

Moreover,  the  fact  that  these  annual 
campaigns  of  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  kings 
were  simply  Bedawi  razzias  highly  organized 
and  on  a  great  scale  should  be  borne  in  mind 
when  we  speak  of  Semitic  "  empires,"  lest 
we  think  too  territorially.  No  permanent^ 
organization  of  territorial  dominion  in  foreign 
parts  was  established  by  Semitic  rulers  till 
late  in^  Assyrian  history.  The  earlier  Semitic 
overlords,  that  is,  all  who  preceded  Ashurnat- 
sirpal  of  Assyria,  went  a-raiding  to  plunder, 
assault,  destroy,  or  receive  submissive  pay- 
ments, and  their  ends  achieved,  returned, 
without  imposing  permanent  garrisons  of  their 
own  followers,  permanent  viceroys,  or  even 
a  permanent  tributary  burden,  to  hinder  the 
stricken  foe  from  returning  to  his  own  way  till 
his  turn  should  come  to  be  raided  again.  The 
imperial  blackmailer  had  possibly  left  a  record 
of  his  presence  and  prowess  on  alien  rocks,  to 
be  defaced  at  peril  when  his  back  was  turned ; 
but  for  the  rest  only  a  sinister  memory. 
Early  Babylonian  and  Early  Assyrian  "  em- 
pire," therefore,  meant,  territorially,  no  more 
than  a  geographical  area  throughout  which 


26  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

an   emperor    could,    and    did,    raid    without 
encountering  effective  opposition. 

Nevertheless,  such  constant  raiding  on  a 
great  scale  was  bound  to  produce  some  of  the 
fruits  of  empire,  and  by  its  fruits,  not  its 
records,  we  know  most  surely  how  far  Baby- 
lonian Empire  had  made  itself  felt.  The  best 
witnesses  to  its  far-reaching  influence  are  first, 
the  Babylonian  element  in  the  Hittite  art  of 
distant  Asia  Minor,  which  shows  from  the 
very  first  (so  far  as  we  know  it,  i.  e,  from  at 
least  1500  B.C.)  that  native  artists  were 
hardly  able  to  realize  any  native  ideas 
without  help  from  Semitic  models;  and 
secondly,  the  use  of  Babylonian  writing  and 
language  and  even  Babylonian  books  by  the 
ruling  classes  in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria  at  a 
Uttle  later  time.  That  governors  of  Syrian 
cities  should  have  written  their  official  com- 
munications to  Pharaohs  of  the  Eighteenth 
Dynasty  in  Babylonian  cuneiform  (as  the 
archives  found  at  Amarna  in  Upper  Egypt 
twenty  years  ago  show  us  they  did)  had 
already  afforded  such  conclusive  proof  of  early 
and  long  maintained  Babylonian  influence, 
that  the  more  recent  discovery  that  Hittite 
lords  of  Cappadocia  used  the  same  script  and 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  27 

language  for  diplomatic  purposes  has  hardly 
surprised  us. 

It  has  been  said  already  that  Babylonia  was 
a  region  so  rich  and  otherwise  fortunate  that 
empire  both  came  to  it  earlier  and  stayed 
later  than  in  the  other  West  Asian  lands  which 
ever  enjoyed  it  at  all.  When  we  come  to 
take  our  survey  of  Western  Asia  in  400  b.c. 
we  shall  see  an  emperor  still  ruling  it  from 
a  throne  set  in  the  lower  Tigris  basin,  though 
not  actually  in  Babylon.  But  for  certain 
reasons  Babylonian  empire  never  endured  for 
any  long  period  continuously.  The  aboriginal 
Akkadian  and  Sumerian  inhabitants  were 
settled,  cultivated  and  home  keeping  folk, 
while  the  establishment  of  Babylonian  empire 
had  been  the  work  of  more  vigorous  intruders. 
These,  however,  had  to  fear  not  only  the 
imperfect  sympathy  of  their  own  aboriginal 
subjects,  who  again  and  again  gathered  their 
sullen  forces  in  the  "  Sea  Land  "  at  the  head 
of  the  Persian  Gulf  and  attacked  the  dominant 
Semites  in  the  rear,  but  also  incursions  of 
fresh  strangers;  for  Babylonia  is  singularly 
open  on  all  sides.  Accordingly,  revolts  of 
the  "  Sea  Land  "  folk,  inrushing  hordes  from 
Arabia,  descents  of  mountain  warriors  from 


28  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

the  border  hills  of  Elam  on  the  south-eastern 
edge  of  the  twin  river  basin,  pressure  from 
the  peoples  of  more  invigorating  lands  on 
the  higher  Euphrates  and  Tigris — one,  or 
more  than  one  such  danger  ever  waited  on 
imperial  Babylon  and  brought  her  low  again 
and  again.  A  great  descent  of  Hatti  raiders 
from  the  north  about  1800  B.C.  seems  to  have 
ended  the  imperial  dominion  of  the  First 
Dynasty.  On  their  retirement  Babylonia, 
falling  into  weak  native  hands,  was  a  prey  to 
a  succession  of  inroads  from  the  Kassite 
mountains  beyond  Elam,  from  Elam  itself, 
from  the  growing  Semitic  power  of  Asshur, 
Babylon's  former  vassal,  from  the  Hittite 
Empire  founded  in  Cappadocia  about  1500 
B.C.,  from  the  fresh  wave  of  Arabian  over- 
flow which  is  distinguished  as  the  Aramaean, 
and  from  yet  another  following  it,  which  is 
usually  called  Chaldsean;  and  it  was  not  till 
almost  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century  that 
one  of  these  intruding  elements  attained 
sufficient  independence  and  security  of  tenure 
to  begin  to  exalt  Babylonia  again  into  a 
mistress  of  foreign  empire.  At  that  date  the 
first  Nebuchadnezzar,  a  part  of  whose  own 
annals  has  been   recovered,    seems   to   have 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  29 

established  overlordship  in  some  part  of 
Mediterranean  Asia-— JJ[ar^^^^^  Land;  '^ 

but  this  empire  perished  again  with  its  author. 
By  1000  B.C.  Babylon  was  once  more  a  small 
state  divided  against  itself  and  threatened  by 
rivals  in  the  east  and  the  north. 


§  2.  Asiatic  Empire  of  Egypt 

During  the  long  interval  since  the  fall  of 
the  First  Babylonian  Dynasty,  however, 
Western  Asia  had  not  been  left  masterless. 
Three  other  imperial  powers  had  waxed  and 
waned  in  her  borders,  of  which  one  was 
destined  to  a  second  expansion  later  on. 
The  earliest  of  these  to  appear  on  the  scene 
established  an  imperial  dominion  of  a  kind 
which  we  shall  not  observe  again  till  Asia 
falls  to  the  Greeks;  for  it  was  established  in 
Asia  by  a  non-Asiatic  power.  In  the  earlier 
years  of  the  fifteenth  century  a  Pharaoh  of 
the  strong  Eighteenth  Dynasty,  Thothmes  III, 
having  overrun  almost  all  Syria  up  to  Car- 
chemish  on  the  Euphrates,  established  in  the 
southern  part  of  that  country  an  imperial 
organization  which  converted  his  conquests 
for   a  time  into  provincial   dependencies  of 


30  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

Egypt.  Of  the  fact  we  have  full  evidence 
in  the  archives  of  Thothmes'  dynastic  suc- 
cessors, found  by  Flinders  Petrie  at  Amarna; 
for  they  include  many  reports  from  officials 
and  client  princes  in  Palestine  and  Phoenicia. 
If,  however,  the  word  empire  is  to  be 
applied  (as  in  fact  we  have  applied  it  in 
respect  of  early  Babylonia)  to  a  sphere  of  " 
habitual  raiding,  where  the  exclusive  right  of 
one  power  to  plunder  is  acknowledged  im- 
plicitly or  explicitly  by  the  raided  and  by 
surrounding  peoples,  this  "  Empire  "  of  Egypt 
must  both  be  set  back  nearly  a  hundred  years 
before  Thothmes  III  and  also  be  credited  with 
wider  limits  than  those  of  south  Syria.  In- 
vasions of  Semitic  Syria  right  up  to  the 
Euphrates  were  first  conducted  by  Pharaohs 
in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  as 
a  sequel  to  the  collapse  of  the  power  of  the 
Semitic  "  Hyksos  "  in  Egypt.  They  were 
wars  partly  of  revenge,  partly  of  natural 
Egyptian  expansion  into  a  neighbouring 
fertile  territory,  which  at  last  lay  open,  and 
was  claimed  by  no  other  imperial  power, 
while  the  weak  Kassites  ruled  Babylon,  and 
the  independence  of  Assyria  was  in  embryo. 
But  the  earlier  Egyptian  armies  seem  to  have 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  31 

gone  forth  to  Syria  simply  to  ravage  and 
levy  blackmail.  They  avoided  all  fenced 
places,  and  returned  to  the  Nile  leaving 
no  one  to  hold  the  ravaged  territory.  No 
Pharaoh  before  the  successor  of  Queen  Hat- 
shepsut  made  Palestine  and  Phoenicia  his 
own.  It  was  Thothmes  III  who  first  reduced 
such  strongholds  as  Megiddo,  and  occupied  the 
Syrian  towns  up  to  Arvad  on  the  shore  and 
almost  to  Kadesh  inland — he  who  by  means 
of  a  few  forts,  garrisoned  perhaps  by  Egyptian 
or  Nubian  troops  and  certainly  in  some 
instances  by  mercenaries  drawn  from  Mediter- 
ranean islands  and  coasts,  so  kept  the  fear 
of  himself  in  the  minds  of  native  chiefs  that 
they  paid  regular  tribute  to  his  collectors 
and  enforced  the  peace  of  Egypt  on  all  and 
sundry  Hebrews  and  Amorites  who  might 
try  to  raid  from  east  or  north. 

In  upper  Syria,  however,  he  and  his  succes- 
sors appear  to  have  attempted  little  more  than 
Thothmes  I  had  done,  that  is  to  say,  they 
made  periodical  armed  progresses  through  the 
fertile  parts,  here  and  there  taking  a  town,  but 
for  the  most  part  taking  only  blackmail.  Som  e. 
strong  places,  such  as  Kadesh,  it  is  probable 
they  never  entered  at  all.     Their  raids,  how- 


32  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

ever,  were  frequent  and  effective  enough  for  all 
Syria  to  come  to  be  regarded  by  surrounding 
kings  and  kinglets  as  an  Egyptian  sphere  of 
influence  within  which  it  was  best  to  acknow- 
ledge Pharaoh's  rights  and  to  placate  him  by 
timely  presents.     So  thought  and  acted  the 
kings  of  Mitanni  across  Euphrates,  the  kings 
of   Hatti   beyond    Taurus,    and    the    distant 
Iranians  of  the  Kassite  dynasty  in  Babylonia. 
Until  the  latter  years  of  Thothmes'  third 
successor,  Amenhetep  III,  who  ruled  in  the 
end   of   the   fifteenth   century   and   the   first 
quarter  of  the  fourteenth,  the  Egyptian  peace 
was  observed  and  Pharaoh's  claim  to  Syria 
was  respected.     Moreover,  an  interesting  ex- 
periment   appears    to    have    been    made    to 
tighten  Egypt's  hold  on  her  foreign  province. 
Young     Syrian    princes    were    brought    for 
education  to  the  Nile,  in  the  hope  that  when 
sent  back  to  their  homes  they  would  be  loyal 
viceroys   of    Pharaoh:    but   the    experiment 
seems  to  have  produced  no  better  ultimate 
effect  than  similar  experiments  tried  subse- 
quently by  imperial  nations  from  the  Romans 
to  ourselves. 

.   Beyond  this  conception  of  imperial  organiza- 
tion the  Egyptians  never  advanced.     Neither 


Plata  2 


34  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

effective  military  occupation  nor  effective 
administration  of  Syria  by  an  Egyptian 
military  or  civil  staff  was  so  much  as  thought 
of.  Traces  of  the  cultural  influence  of  Egypt 
on  the  Syrian  civilization  of  the  time  (so  far 
as  excavation  has  revealed  its  remains)  are 
few  and  far  between;  and  we  must  con- 
clude that  the  number  of  genuine  Egyptians 
who  resided  in,  or  even  passed  through,  the 
Asiatic  province  was  very  small.  Unad- 
venturous  by  nature,  and  disinclined  to 
embark  on  foreign  trade,  the  Nilots  were 
content  to  leave  Syria  in  vicarious  hands,  so 
they  derived  some  profit  from  it.  It  needed, 
therefore,  only  the  appearance  of  some 
vigorous  and  numerous  tribe  in  the  province 
itself,  or  of  some  covetous  power  on  its 
borders,  to  end  such  an  empire.  Both 
had  appeared  before  Amenhetep's  death^ — 
the  Amorites  in  mid  Syria,  and  a  newly 
consolidated  Hatti  power  on  the  confines  of 
the  north.  The  inevitable  crisis  was  met 
with  no  new  measures  by  his  son,  the  famous 
Akhenaten,  and  before  the  middle  of  the 
fourteenth  century  the  foreign  empire  of 
Egypt  had  crumbled  to  nothing  but  a  sphere 
of  influence  in  southernmost  Palestine,  having 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  35 

lasted,  for  better  or  worse,  something  less 
than  two  hundred  years.  It  was  revived, 
indeed,  by  the  kings  of  the  Dynasty  suc- 
ceeding, but  had  even  less  chance  of 
duration  than  of  old.  Rameses  II,  in  divid- 
ing it  to  his  own  great  disadvantage  with 
the  Hatti  king  by  a  Treaty  whose  pro- 
visions are  known  to  us  from  surviving 
documents  of  both  parties,  confessed  Egyptian 
impotence  to  niake  good  any  contested  claim ; 
and  by  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  the 
hand  of  Pharaoh  was  withdrawn  from  Asia, 
even  from  that  ancient  appanage  of  Egypt, 
the  peninsula  of  Sinai.  Some  subsequent 
Egyptian  kings  would  make  raids  into  Syria, 
but  none  was  able,  or  very  desirous,  to 
establish  there  a  permanent  Empire. 

§  3.  Empire  of  the  Hatti 

The  empire  which  pressed  back  the  Egyp- 
tians is  the  last  but  one  which  we  have 
to  consider  before  1000  B.C.  It  has  long 
been  known  that  the  Hittites,  variously  called 
Kheta  by  Egyptians  and  Heth  or  Hatti  by 
Semites  and  by  themselves,  developed  into 
a   power    in   westernmost   Asia   at   least   as 


36  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

early  as  the  fifteenth  century;  but  it  was 
not  until  their  cuneiform  archives  were  dis- 
covered in  1907  at  Boghazkeui  in  northern 
Cappadocia  that  the  imperial  nature  of  their 
power,  the  centre  from  which  it  was  exerted, 
and  the  succession  of  the  rulers  who  wielded 
it  became  clear.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
a  great  Hatti  raid  broke  the  imperial  sway  of 
the  First  Babylonian  Dynasty  about  1800 
B.C.  Whence  those  raiders  came  we  have 
still  to  learn.  But,  since  a  Hatti  people, 
well  enough  organized  to  invade,  conquer 
and  impose  its  garrisons,  and  (much  more 
significant)  its  own  peculiar  civilization,  on 
distant  territories,  was  seated  at  Boghazkeui 
(it  is  best  to  use  this  modern  name  till  better 
assured  of  an  ancient  one)  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  we  may  reasonably  believe  Eastern 
Asia  Minor  to  have  been  the  homeland  of  the 
Hatti  three  centuries  before.  As  an  imperial 
power  they  enter  history  with  a  king  whom 
his  own  archives  name  Subbiluliuma  (but 
Egyptian  records,  Sapararu),  and  they  vanish 
something  less  than  two  centuries  later.  The 
northern  half  of  Syria,  northern  Mesopotamia, 
and  probably  almost  all  Asia  Minor  were 
conquered  by  the  Hatti  before  1350  B.C.  and 


Plate  3 


37- 


38  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

rendered  tributary;  Egypt  was  forced  out 
of  Asia ;  the  Semitic  settlements  on  the  twin 
rivers  and  the  tribes  in  the  desert  were  con- 
strained to  deference  or  defence.  A  century 
and  a  half  later  the  Hatti  had  returned  into  a 
darkness  even  deeper  than  that  from  which 
they  emerged.  The  last  king  of  Boghazkeui, 
of  whose  archives  any  part  has  come  to  light, 
is  one  Arnaunta,  reigning  in  the  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  He  may  well  have  had 
successors  whose  documents  may  yet  be 
found ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  we  know  from 
Assyrian  annals,  dated  only  a  little  later, 
that  a  people,  possibly  kin  to  the  Hatti  and 
certainly  civilized  by  them,  but  called  by 
another  name,  Mushkaya  or  Mushki  (we  shall 
say  more  of  them  presently),  overran  most, 
if  not  all,  the  Hatti  realm  by  the  middle 
of  the  twelfth  century.  And  since,  more- 
over, the  excavated  ruins  at  both  Boghazkeui, 
the  capital  of  the  Hatti,  and  Carchemish, 
their  chief  southern  dependency,  show  un- 
mistakable signs  of  destruction  and  of  a 
subsequent  general  reconstruction,  which  on 
archaeological  grounds  must  be  dated  not 
much  later  than  Arnaunta's  time,  it  seems 
probable  that   the  history  of  Hatti   empire 


THE  EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  39 

closed  with  that  king.  What  happened  sub- 
sequently to  surviving  detachments  of  this 
once  imperial  people  and  to  other  communities 
so  near  akin  by  blood  or  civilization,  that  the 
Assyrians,  when  speaking  generally  of  western 
foes  or  subjects,  long  continued  to  call  them 
Hatti,  we  shall  consider  presently. 

§  4.  Early  Assyrian  Empire 

Remains  Assyria,  which  before  1000  B.C. 
had  twice  conquered  an  empire  of  the  same 
kind  as  that  credited  to  the  First  Babylonian 
Dynasty  and  twice  recoiled.  The  early 
Assyrian  expansions  are,  historically,  the  most 
noteworthy  of  the  early  West  Asian  Empires 
because,  unlike  the  rest,  they  were  preludes 
to  an  ultimate  territorial  overlordship  which 
would  come  nearer  to  anticipating  Macedonian 
and  Roman  imperial  systems  than  any  others 
precedent.  Assyria,  rather  than  Babylon  or 
Egypt,  heads  the  list  of  aspirants  to  the 
Mastership  of  the  World. 

There  will  be  so  much  to  say  of  the  third 
and  subsequent  expansion  of  Assyria,  that 
her  earlier  empires  may  be  passed  over  briefly. 
The  middle  Tigris  basin  seems  to  have  received 


40  THE   ANCIENT  EAST 

a  large  influx  of  Semites  of  the  Canaanitic 
wave  at  least  as  early  as  Babylonia,  and 
thanks  to  various  causes — to  the  absence  of 
a  prior  local  civilization  as  advanced  as  the 
Sumerian,  to  greater  distance  from  such  enter- 
prising fomenters  of  disturbance  as  Elam  and 
Arabia,  and  to  a  more  invigorating  climate — 
these  Semites  settled  down  more  quickly  and 
thoroughly  into  an  agricultural  society  than 
the  Babylonians  and  developed  it  in  greater 
purity.  Their  earliest  social  centre  was  Asshur 
in  the  southern  part  of  their  territory.  There, 
in  proximity  to  Babylonia,  they  fell  inevitably 
under  the  domination  of  the  latter ;  but  after 
the  fall  of  the  First  Dynasty  of  Babylon 
and  the  subsequent  decline  of  southern 
Semitic  vigour,  a  tendency  manifested  itself 
among  the  northern  Semites  to  develop  their 
nationality  about  more  central  points.  Calah, 
higher  up  the  river,  replaced  Asshur  in  the 
thirteenth  century  B.C.,  only  to  be  replaced 
in  turn  by  Nineveh,  a  little  further  still 
upstream;  and  ultimately  Assyria,  though  it 
had  taken  its  name  from  the  southern  city, 
came  to  be  consolidated  round  a  north 
Mesopotamian  capital  into  a  power  able  to 
impose  vassalage  on  Babylon  and  to  send 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  41 

imperial  raiders  to  the  Mediterranean,  and 
to  the  Great  Lakes  of  Armenia.  The  first 
of  her  kings  to  attain  this  sort  of  imperial 
position  was  Shalmaneser  I,  who  early  in 
the  thirteenth  century  b.c.  appears  to  have 
crushed  the  last  strength  of  the  north  Meso- 
potamian  powers  of  Mitanni  and  Khani  and 
laid  the  way  open  to  the  west  lands.  The 
Hatti  power,  however,  tried  hard  to  close  the 
passages  and  it  was  not  until  its  catastrophe 
and  the  retirement  of  those  who  brought  it 
about — the  Mushki  and  their  allies — that 
about  1100  Tiglath  Pileser  I  could  lead  his 
Assyrian  raiders  into  Syria,  and  even,  per- 
haps, a  short  distance  across  Taurus.  Why 
his  empire  died  with  him  we  do  not  know  pre- 
cisely. A  new  invasion  of  Arabian  Semites, 
the  Aramaeans,  whom  he  attacked  at  Mt. 
Bishri  (Tell  Basher),  may  have  been  the 
cause.  But,  in  any  case,  the  fact  is  certain. 
The  sons  of  the  great  king,  who  had  reached 
Phoenician  Aradus  and  there  embarked  vain- 
gloriously  on  shipboard  to  claim  mastery  of 
the  Western  Sea,  were  reduced  to  little  better 
than  vassals  of  their  father's  former  vassal, 
Babylon ;  and  up  to  the  close  of  the  eleventh 
century  Assyria  had  not  revived. 


42  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

§  5.  New  Forces  in  1000  b.c. 

Thus  in  1000  B.C.,  we  look  round  the  East, 
and,  so  far  as  our  vision  can  penetrate  the 
clouds,  see  no  one  dominant  power.  Terri- 
tories which  formerly  were  overridden  by  the 
greater  states.  Babylonia,  Egypt,  Cappadocia 
and  Assyria,  seem  to  be  not  only  self-governing 
but  free  from  interference,  although  the  van- 
ished empires  and  a  recent  great  movement 
of  peoples  have  left  them  with  altered  political 
boundaries  and  sometimes  with  new  dynas- 
ties. None  of  the  political  units  has  a  much 
larger  area  than  another,  and  it  would  not 
have  been  easy  at  the  moment  to  prophesy 
which,  or  if  any  one,  would  grow  at  the 
expense  of  the  rest. 

. ;  The  great  movement  of  peoples,  to  which 
allusion  has  just  been  made,  had  been  dis- 
turbing West  Asia  for  two  centuries.  On  the 
east,  where  the  well  organized  and  well  armed 
societies  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  offered  a 
serious  obstacle  to  nomadic  immigrants,  the 
inflow  had  been  pent  back  beyond  frontier 
mountains.  But  in  the  west  the  tide  seems 
to  have  flowed  too  strongly  to  be  resisted  by 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  43 

such  force  as  the  Hatti  empire  of  Cappadocia 
could  oppose,  and  to  have  swept  through  Asia 
Minor  even  to  Syria  and  Mesopotamia. 
Records  of  Rameses  III  tell  how  a  great  host 
of  federated  peoples  appeared  on  the  Asian 
frontier  of  Egypt  very  early  in  the  twelfth 
century.  Among  them  marched  men  of  the 
"  Kheta "  or  Hatti,  but  not  as  leaders. 
These  strong  foes  and  allies  of  Seti  I  and 
Rameses  II,  not  a  century  before,  had  now 
fallen  from  their  imperial  estate  to  follow 
in  the  wake  of  newcomers,  who  had  lately 
humbled  them  in  their  Cappadocian  home. 
The  geographical  order  in  which  the  scribes 
of  Rameses  enumerated  their  conquests  shows 
clearly  the  direction  from  which  the  federals 
had  come  and  the  path  they  followed.  In 
succession  they  had  devastated  Hatti  (i.  e, 
Cappadocia),  Kedi  (^.  e.  Cilicia),  Carchemish 
and  central  Syria.  Their  victorious  progress 
began,  therefore,  in  northern  Asia  Minor,  and 
followed  the  great  roads  through  the  Cilician 
passes  to  end  at  last  on  the  very  frontiers  of 
Egypt.  The  list  of  these  newcomers  has  long 
interested  historians;  for  outlandish  as  their 
names  were  to  Egyptians,  they  seem  to 
our  eyes  not  unfamiliar,   and    are    possibly 


44  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

travesties  of  some  which  are  writ  large  on 
pages  of  later  history.  Such  are  the  Pulesti 
or  Philistines,  and  a  group  hailing  apparently 
from  Asia  Minor  and  the  Isles,  Tjakaray. 
Shakalsha,  Danaau  and  Washasha,  successors 
of  Pisidian  and  other  Anatolian  allies  of  the 
Hittites  in  the  time  of  Rameses  II,  and  of 
the  Lycian,  Achaean  and  Sardinian  pirates 
whom  Egypt  used  sometimes  to  beat  from  her 
borders,  sometimes  to  enlist  in  her  service. 
Some  of  these  peoples,  from  whatever  quarters 
they  had  come,  settled  presently  into  new 
homes  as  the  tide  receded.  The  Pulesti,  if 
they  were  indeed  the  historic  Philistines, 
stranded  and  stayed  on  the  confines  of  Egypt, 
retaining  certain  memories  of  an  earlier 
state,  which  had  been  theirs  in  some  Minoan 
land.  Since  the  Tjakaray  and  the  Washasha 
seem  to  have  sprung  from  lands  now  reckoned 
in  Europe,  we  may  count  this  occasion  the 
first  in  history  on  which  the  west  broke  in 
force  into  the  east. 

Turn  to  the  annals  of  Assyria  and  you  will 
learn,  from  records  of  Tiglath  Pileser  I,  that 
this  northern  wave  was  followed  up  in  the 
same  century  by  a  second,  which' bore  on  its 
crest  another  bold  horde  from  Asia  Minor. 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  45 

Its  name,  Mushki,  we  now  hear  for  the 
first  time,  but  shall  hear  again  in  time  to 
come.  A  remnant  of  this  race  would  survive 
far  into  historic  times  as  the  Moschi  of  Greek 
geographers,  an  obscure  people  on  the  borders 
of  Cappadocia  and  Armenia.  But  who  pre- 
cisely the  first  Mushki  were,  whence  they  had 
originally  come,  and  whither  they  went  when 
pushed  back  out  of  Mesopotamia,  are  ques- 
tions still  debated.  Two  significant  facts  are 
known  about  their  subsequent  history;  first, 
that  two  centuries  later  than  our  date  they,  or 
some  part  of  them,  were  settled  in  Cappadocia, 
apparently  rather  in  the  centre  and  north  of 
that  country  than  in  the  south  :  second,  that 
at  that  same  epoch  and  later  they  had  kings 
of  the  name  Mita,  which  is  thought  to  be 
identical  with  the  name  Midas,  known  to 
early  Greek  historians  as  borne  by  kings  of 
Phrygia. 

Because  of  this  last  fact,  the  Mushki  have 
been  put  down  as  proto-Phrygians,  risen 
to  power  after  the  fall  of  the  Cappadocian 
Hatti.  This  contention  will  be  considered 
hereafter,  when  we  reach  the  date  of  the 
first  known  contact  between  Assyria  and  any 
people  settled  in  western  Asia  Minor.     But 


46  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

meanwhile,  let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  their 
royal  name  Mita  does  not  necessarily  imply  a 
connection  between  the  Mushki  and  Phrygia ; 
for  since  the  ethnic  "  Mitanni "  of  north 
Mesopotamia  means  "  Mita's  men,"  that 
name  must  have  long  been  domiciled  much 
farther  east. 

On  the  whole,  whatever  their  later  story, 
the  truth  about  the  Mushki,  who  came  down 
into  Syria  early  in  the  twelfth  century  and 
retired  to  Cappadocia  some  fifty  years  later 
after  crossing  swords  with  Assyria,  is  prob- 
ably this — ^that  they  were  originally  a  moun- 
tain people  from  northern  Armenia  or  the 
Caucasus,  distinct  from  the  Hatti,  and  that, 
having  descended  from  the  north-east  in  a 
primitive  nomadic  state  into  the  seat  of  an 
old  culture  possessed  by  an  enfeebled  race, 
they  adopted  the  latter's  civilization  as  they 
conquered  it  and  settled  down.  But  probably 
they  did  not  fix  themselves  definitely  in 
Cappadocia  till  the  blow  struck  by  Tiglath 
Pileser  had  checked  their  lust  of  movement 
and  weakened  their  confidence  of  victory.  In 
any  case,  the  northern  storms  had  subsided 
by  1000  B.C.,  leaving  Asia  Minor,  Armenia 
and  Syria  parcelled  among  many  princes. 


THE   EAST   IN    1000    B.C.  47 


§  6.  Asia  Minor 

Had  one  taken  ship  with  Achseans  or  lonians 
for  the  western  coast  of  Anatolia  in  the  year 
1000,  one  would  have  expected  to  disembark 
at  or  near  some  infant  settlement  of  men, 
not  natives  by  extraction,  but  newly  come 
from  the  sea  and  speaking  Greek  or  another 
^gean  tongue.  These  men  had  ventured  so 
far  to  seize  the  rich  lands  at  the  mouths  of 
the  long  Anatolian  valleys,  from  which  their 
roving  forefathers  had  been  almost  entirely 
debarred  by  the  provincial  forces  of  some 
inland  power,  presumably  the  Hatti  Empire 
of  Cappadocia.  In  earlier  days  the  Cretans, 
IV  their  kin  of  Mycenaean  Greece  in  the  latest 
^geaii  age,  had  been  able  to  plant  no  more 
Ihaij  a  few  inconsiderable  colonies  of  traders 
on  Anatolian  shores.  Now,  however,  their 
descendants  were  being  steadily  reinforced 
from  the  west  by  members  of  a  younger 
Aryan  race,  who  mixed  with  the  natives  of 
the  coast,  and  gradually  mastered  or  drove 
them  inland.  Inconsiderable  as  this  European 
soakage  into  the  fringe  of  the  neighbouring 
continent  must  have  seemed  at  that  moment. 


48  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

we  know  that  it  was  inaugurating  a  process 
which  ultimately  would  affect  profoundly  all 
the  history  of  Hither  Asia.  That  Greek  Ionian 
colonization  first  attracts  notice  round  about 
1000  B.C.  marks  the  period  as  a  cardinal  point 
in  history.  We  cannot  say  for  certain,  with 
our  present  knowledge,  that  any  one  of  the 
famous  Greek  cities  had  already  begun  to 
grow  on  the  Anatolian  coast.  There  is  better 
evidence  for  the  so  early  existence  of  Miletus, 
where  the  German  excavators  have  found 
much  pottery  of  the  latest  ^Egean  age,  than 
of  any  other.  But,  at  least,  it  is  probable 
that  Greeks  were  already  settled  on  the  sites 
of  Cnidus,  Teos,  Smyrna,  Colophon,  Phocea, 
Cyme  and  many  more;  while  the  greater 
islands  Rhodes,  Samos,  Chios  and  Mitylene 
had  apparently  received  western  settlers 
several  generations  ago,  perhaps  before  even 
the  first  Achaean  raids  into  Asia. 

The  western  visitor,  if  he  pushed  inland, 
would  have  avoided  the  south-western  districts 
of  the  peninsula,  where  a  mountainous  country, 
known  later  as  Caria,  Lycia,  and  Pisidia,  was 
held  by  primitive  hill-men  settled  in  de- 
tached tribal  fashion  like  modern  Albanians. 
They  had  never  yet  been  subdued,   and  as 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  49 

soon  as  the  rising  Greek  ports  on  their 
coasts  should  open  a  way  for  them  to  the 
outer  world,  they  would  become'  known  as 
admirable  mercenary  soldiery,  following  a 
congenial  trade  which,  if  the  Pedasu,  who 
appear  in  records  of  Egyptian  campaigns  of 
the  Eighteenth  Dynasty,  were  really  Pisidians, 
was  not  new  to  them.  North  of  their  hills, 
however,  lay  broader  valleys  leading  up  to 
the  central  plateau;  and,  if  Herodotus  is  to 
be  believed,  an  organized  monarchical  society, 
ruled  by  the  "  Heraclids "  of  Sardes,  was 
already  developed  there.  We  know  practi- 
cally nothing  about  it;  but  since  some  three 
centuries  later  the  Lydian  people  was  rich 
and  luxurious  in  the  Hermus  valley,  which 
had  once  been  a  fief  of  the  Hatti,  we  must 
conclude  that  it  had  been  enjoying  security 
as  far  back  as  1000  B.C.  Who  those  Heraclid 
princes  were  exactly  is  obscure.  The  dynastic 
name  given  to  them  by  Herodotus  probably 
implies  that  they  traced  their  origin  (i.  e.  owed 
especial  allegiance)  to  a  God  of  the  Double 
War- Axe,  whom  the  Greeks  likened  to  Heracles, 
but  we  liken  to  Sandan,  god  of  Tarsus  and  of 
the  lands  of  the  south-east.  We  shall  say 
more  of  him  and  his  worshippers  presently. 


50  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

Leaving  aside  the  northern  fringe- lands  as 
ill  known  and  of  small  account  (as  we  too 
shall  leave  them),  our  traveller  would  pass 
up  from  the  Lydian  vales  to  find  the  Cappa- 
docian  Hatti  no  longer  the  masters  of  the 
plateau  as  of  old.  No  one  of  equal  power 
seems  to  have  taken  their  place ;  but  there  is 
reason  to  think  that  the  Mushki,  who  had 
brought  them  low,  now  filled  some  of  their 
room  in  Asia  Minor.  But  these  Mushki  had 
so  far  adopted  Hatti  civilization  either  before 
or  since  their  great  raiding  expedition  which 
Tiglath  Pileser  I  of  Assyria  repelled,  that 
their  domination  can  scarcely  have  made 
much  difference  to  the  social  condition  of 
Asia  Minor.  Their  capital  was  probably  where 
the  Hatti  capital  had  been — at  Boghazkeui; 
but  how  far  their  lordship  radiated  from  that 
centre  is  not  known. 

In  the  south-east  of  Asia  Minor  we  read  of 
several  principalities,  both  in  the  Hatti  docu- 
ments of  earlier  centuries  and  in  Assyrian 
annals  of  later  date ;  and  since  some  of  their 
names  appear  in  both  these  sets  of  records, 
we  may  safely  assign  them  to  the  same  locali- 
ties during  the  intermediate  period.  Such  are 
Kas  in  later  Lycaonia,  Tabal  or  Tubal  in  south- 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  51 

eastern  Cappadocia,  Khilakku,  which  left  its 
name  to  historical  Cilicia,  and  Kue  in  the  rich 
eastern  Cilician  plain  and  the  north-eastern 
hills.  In  north  Syria  again  we  find  both  in 
early  and  in  late  times  Kummukh,  which  left 
to  its  district  the  historic  name,  Commagene. 
All  these  principalities,  as  their  earlier  monu- 
ments prove,  shared  the  same  Hatti  civiliza- 
tion as  the  Mushki  and  seem  to  have  had  the 
same  chief  deities,  the  axe-bearing  Sandan,  or 
Teshup,  or  Hadad,  whose  sway  we  have  noted 
far  west  in  Lydia,  and  also  a  Great  Mother,  the 
patron  of  peaceful  increase,  as  he  was  of  war- 
like conquest.  But  whether  this  uniformity 
of  civilization  implies  any  general  overlord, 
such  as  the  Mushki  king,  is  very  questionable. 
The  past  supremacy  of  the  Hatti  is  enough  to 
account  for  large  community  of  social  features 
in  1000  B.C.  over  all  Asia  Minor  and  north 
Syria. 

§  7.  Syria 

It  is  time  for  our  traveller  to  move  on  south- 
ward into  "Hatti-land,"  as  the  Assyrians  would 
long  continue  to  call  the  southern  area  of  the 
old  Hatti  civilization.      He  would  have  found 


52  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

Syria  in  a  state  of  greater  or  less  disintegration 
from  end  to  end.  Since  the  withdrawal  of 
the  strong  hands  of  the  Hatti  from  the 
north  and  the  Egyptians  from  the  south, 
the  disorganized  half-vacant  land  had  been 
attracting  to  itself  successive  hordes  of  half- 
nomadic  Semites  from  the  eastern  and 
southern  steppes.  By  1000  B.C.  these  had 
settled  down  as  a  number  of  Aramaean 
societies  each  under  its  princeling.  All  were 
great  traders.  One  such  society  established 
itself  in  the  north-west,  in  Shamal,  where, 
influenced  by  the  old  Hatti  culture,  an  art 
came  into  being  which  was  only  saved  ultim- 
ately by  Semitic  Assyria  from  being  purely 
Hittite.  Its  capital,  which  lay  at  modern 
Sinjerli,  one  of  the  few  Syrian  sites  scientific- 
ally explored,  we  shall  notice  later  on.  South 
lay  Patin  and  Bit  Agusi ;  south  of  these  again, 
Hamath  and  below  it  Damascus — all  new 
Aramaean  states,  which  were  waiting  for  quiet 
times  to  develop  according  to  the  measure  of 
their  respective  territories  and  their  command 
of  trade  routes.  Most  blessed  in  both  natural 
fertility  and  convenience  of  position  was 
Damascus  (Ubi  or  Hobah),  which  had  been 
receiving   an   Aramaean   influx   for   at    least 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  53 

three  hundred  years.  It  was  destined  to  out- 
strip the  rest  of  those  new  Semitic  states; 
but  for  the  moment  it  was  Httle  stronger  than 
they.  As  for  the  Phoenician  cities  on  the 
Lebanon  coast,  which  we  know  from  the 
Amarna  archives  and  other  Egyptian  records 
to  have  long  been  settled  with  Canaanitic 
Semites,  they  were  to  appear  henceforward  in 
a  light  quite  other  than  that  in  which  the 
reports  of  their  Egyptian  governors  and 
visitors  had  hitherto  shown  them.  Not  only 
did  they  very  rapidly  become  maritime  traders 
instead  of  mere  local  territorial  centres,  but 
(if  we  may  infer  it  from  the  lack  of  known 
monuments  of  their  higher  art  or  of  their 
writing  before  1000  B.C.)  they  were  making 
or  just  about  to  make  a  sudden  advance  in 
social  development.  It  should  be  remarked 
that  our  evidence,  that  other  Syrian  Semites 
had  taken  to  writing  in  scripts  of  their  own, 
begins  not  much  later  at  various  points — ^in 
Shamal,  in  Moab  and  in  Samaria. 

This  rather  sudden  expansion  of  the  Phoeni- 
cians into  a  maritime  power  about  1000  b.c. 
calls  for  explanation.  Herodotus  thought 
that  the  Phoenicians  were  driven  to  take  to 
the   sea  simply   by  the  growing  inadequacy 


54  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

of  their  narrow  territory  to  support  the  natural 
increase  of  its  inhabitants,  and  probably  he 
was  partly  right,  the  crisis  of  their  fate  being 
hastened  by  Aramaean  pressure  from  inland. 
But  the  advance  in  their  culture,  which  is 
marked  by  the  development  of  their  art  and 
their  writing,  was  too  rapid  and  too  great  to 
have  resulted  only  from  new  commerce  with  the 
sea ;  nor  can  it  have  been  due  to  any  influence 
of  the  Aramaean  elements  which  were  com- 
paratively fresh  from  the  Steppes.  To  account 
for  the  facts  in  Syria  we  seem  to  require,  not 
long  previous  to  this  time,  a  fresh  accession 
of  population  from  some  area  of  higher 
culture.  When  we  observe,  therefore,  among 
the  earlier  Phoenician  and  south  Syrian 
antiquities  much  that  was  imported,  and 
more  that  derived  its  character,  from  Cyprus 
and  even  remoter  centres  of  the  .Egean 
culture  of  the  latest  Minoan  Age,  we  cannot 
regard  as  fantastic  the  belief  of  the  Cretan 
discoverer,  Arthur  Evans,  that  the  historic 
Phoenician  civilization,  and  especially  the 
Phoenician  script,  owed  their  being  in  great 
measure  to  an  immigration  from  those  nearest 
oversea  lands  which  had  long  possessed  a 
fully  developed  art  and  a  system  of  writing. 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  55 

After  the  fall  of  the  Cnossian  Dynasty  we 
know  that  a  great  dispersal  of  Cretans  began, 
which  w&s  continued  and  increased  later  by 
the  descent  of  the  Achseans  into  Greece.  It 
has  been  said  already  that  the  Pulesti  or  Philis- 
tines, who  had  followed  the  first  northern 
horde  to  the  frontiers  of  Egypt  early  in  the 
twelfth  century,  are  credibly  supposed  to 
have  come  from  some  area  affected  by 
Minoan  civilization,  while  the  Tjakaray  and 
Washasha,  who  accompanied  them,  were  prob- 
ably actual  Cretans.  The  Pulesti  stayed,  as 
we  know,  in  Philistia  :  the  Tjakaray  settled  at 
Dor  on  the  South  Phoenician  coast,  where 
Unamon,  an  envoy  of  Rameses  XI,  found 
them.  These  settlers  are  quite  sufficient  to 
account  for  the  subsequent  development  of  a 
higher  culture  in  mid  and  south  Syria,  and  there 
may  well  have  been  some  further  immigration 
from  Cyprus  and  other  ^gean  lands  which,  as 
time  went  on,  impelled  the  cities  of  Phoenicia, 
so  well  endowed  by  nature,  to  develop  a  new 
culture  apace  about  1000  B.C. 


56  THE  ANCIENT    EAST 

§  8.  Palestine 

If  the  Phoenicians  were  feehng  the  thrust 
of  Steppe  peoples,  their  southern  neighbours, 
the  PhiHstines,  who  had  hved  and  grown  rich 
on  the  tolls  and  trade  of  the  great  north 
road  from  Egypt  for  at  least  a  century  and 
a  half,  were  feeling  it  too.  During  some 
centuries  past  there  had  come  raiding  from 
the  south-east  deserts  certain  sturdy  and  well- 
knit  tribes,  which  long  ago  had  displaced 
or  assimilated  the  Canaanites  along  the  high- 
lands west  of  Jordan,  and  were  now  tend- 
ing to  settle  down  into  a  national  unity, 
cemented  by  a  common  worship.  They  had 
had  long  intermittent  struggles,  traditions 
of  which  fill  the  Hebrew  Book  of  Judges — 
struggles  not  only  with  the  Canaanites,  but 
also  with  the  Amorites  of  the  upper  Orontes 
valley,  and  later  with  the  Aramaeans  of  the 
north  and  east,  and  with  fresh  incursions  of 
Arabs  from  the  south ;  and  most  lately  of  all 
they  had  had  to  give  way  for  about  half  a 
century  before  an  expansive  movement  of 
the  Philistines,  which  carried  the  latter  up 
to  Galilee  and  secured  to  them  the  profits  of 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  57 

all  the  Palestinian  stretch  of  the  great  North 
Road.  But  about  a  generation  before  our 
date  the  northernmost  of  those  bold  "  Habiri," 
under  an  elective  sheikh  Saul,  had  pushed  the 
Philistines  out  of  Bethshan  and  other  points 
of  vantage  in  mid -Palestine,  and  had  become 
once  more  free  of  the  hills  which  they  had  held 
in  the  days  of  Pharaoh  Menephthah.  Though, 
at  the  death  of  Saul,  the  enemy  regained 
most  of  what  he  had  lost,  he  was  not  to  hold 
it  long.  A  greater  chief,  David,  who  had  risen 
to  power  by  Philistine  help  and  now  had  the 
support  of  the  southern  tribes,  was  welding 
both  southern  and  northern  Hebrews  into  a 
single  monarchical  society  and,  having  driven 
his  old  masters  out  of  the  north  once  more, 
threatened  the  southern  stretch  of  the  great 
North  Road  from  a  new  capital,  Jerusalem. 
Moreover,  by  harrying  repeatedly  the  lands 
east  of  Jordan  up  to  the  desert  edge, 
David  had  stopped  further  incursions  from 
Arabia;  and,  though  the  Aramaean  state 
of  Damascus  was  growing  into  a  formidable 
danger,  he  had  checked  for  the  present  its 
tendency  to  spread  southwards,  and  had 
strengthened  himself  by  agreements  with 
another  Aramaean    prince,  him    of   Hamath, 


58  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

who  lay  on  the  north  flank  of  Damascus,  and 
with  the  chief  of  the  nearest  Phoenician  city, 
Tyre.  The  latter  was  not  yet  the  rich  place 
which  it  would  grow  to  be  in  the  next  century, 
but  it  was  strong  enough  to  control  the  coast 
road  north  of  the  Galilean  lowlands.  Israel 
not  only  was  never  safer,  but  would  never 
again  hold  a  position  of  such  relative  im- 
portance in  Syria,  as  was  hers  in  a  day  of 
many  small  and  infant  states  about  1000  B.C. : 
and  in  later  times,  under  the  shadow  of 
Assyria  and  the  menace  of  Egypt,  the  Jews 
would  look  back  to  the  reigns  of  David  and 
his  successor  with  some  reason  as  their  golden 
age. 

The  traveller  would  not  have  ventured  into 
Arabia;  nor  shall  we.  It  was  then  an  un- 
known land  lying  wholly  outside  history. 
We  have  no  record  (if  that  mysterious  em- 
bassy of  the  "  Queen  of  Sheba,"  who  came 
to  hear  the  wisdom  of  Solomon,  be  ruled  out) 
of  any  relations  between  a  state  of  the  civilized 
East  and  an  Arabian  prince  before  the  middle 
of  the  ninth  century.  It  may  be  that,  as 
Glaser  reckoned,  Sabaean  society  in  the  south- 
west of  the  peninsula  had  already  reached  the 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  59 

preliminary  stage  of  tribal  settlement  through 
which  Israel  passed  under  its  Judges,  and  was 
now  moving  towards  monarchy;  and  that  of 
this  our  traveller  might  have  learned  something 
in  Syria  from  the  last  arrived  Aramaeans.  But 
we,  who  can  learn  nothing,  have  no  choice 
but  to  go  north  with  him  again,  leaving  to  our 
right  the  Syrian  desert  roamed  by  Bedawis 
in  much  the  same  social  state  as  the  Anazeh 
to-day,  owing  allegiance  to  no  one.  We  can 
cross  Euphrates  at  Carchemish  or  at  Til 
Barsip  opposite  the  Sajur  mouth,  or  where 
Thapsacus  looked  across  to  the  outfall  of 
the  Khabur. 


§  9.  Mesopotamia 

No  annals  of  Assyria  have  survived  for 
nearly  a  century  before  1000  B.C.,  and  very 
few  for  the  century  after  that  date.  Nor  do 
Babylonian  records  make  good  our  deficiency. 
Though  we  cannot  be  certain,  we  are  prob- 
ably safe  in  saying  that  during  these  two 
centuries  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  princes 
had  few  or  no  achievements  to  record  of  the 


60  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

kind  which  they  held,  almost  alone,  worthy 
to  be  immortalized  on  stone  or  clay — ^that  is  to 
say,  raids,  conquests,  sacking  of  cities,  black- 
mailing of  princes.  Since  Tiglath  Pileser's 
time  no  "  Kings  of  the  World  "  (by  which 
title  was  signified  an  overlord  of  Mesopotamia 
merely)  had  been  seated  on  either  of  the 
twin  rivers.  What  exactly  had  happened  in 
the  broad  tract  between  the  rivers  and  to  the 
south  of  Taurus  since  the  departure  of  the 
Mushki  hordes  (if,  indeed,  they  did  all  depart), 
we  do  not  know.  The  Mitanni,  who  may  have 
been  congeners  of  the  latter,  seem  still  to  have 
been  holding  the  north-west ;  probably  all  the 
north-east  was  Assyrian  territory.  No  doubt 
the  Kurds  and  Armenians  of  Urartu  were 
raiding  the  plains  impartially  from  autumn 
to  spring,  as  they  always  did  when  Assyria 
was  weak.  We  shall  learn  a  good  deal 
more  about  Mesopotamia  proper  when  the 
results  of  the  German  excavations  at  Tell 
Halaf,  near  Ras  el-Ain,  are  complete  and 
published.  The  most  primitive  monuments 
found  there  are  perhaps  relics  of  that  power 
of  Khani  (Harran),  which  w^as  stretched 
even   to  include  Nineveh  before  the  Semitic 


THE   EAST   IN   1000    B.C.  61 

patesis  of  Asshur  grew  to  royal  estate  and 
moved  northward  to  make  imperial  Assyria. 
But  there  are  later  strata  of  remains  as  well 
which  should  contain  evidence  of  the  course 
of  events  in  mid-Mesopotamia  during  subse- 
quent periods  both  of  Assyrian  domination 
and  of  local  independence. 

Assyria,  as  has  been  said,  was  without  doubt 
weak  at  this  date,  that  is,  she  was  confined  to 
the  proper  territory  of  her  own  agricultural 
Semites.  This  state  of  things,  whenever  ex- 
istent throughout  her  history,  seems  to  have 
implied  priestly  predominance,  in  which 
Babylonian  influence  went  for  much.  The 
Semitic  tendency  to  super-Monotheism,  which 
has  already  been  noticed,  constantly  showed 
itself  among  the  eastern  Semites  (when  com- 
paratively free  from  military  tyranny)  in  a 
reversion  of  their  spiritual  allegiance  to  one 
supreme  god  enthroned  at  Babylon,  the 
original  seat  of  east  Semitic  theocracy.  And 
even  when  this  city  had  little  military  strength 
the  priests  of  Marduk  appear  often  to  have 
succeeded  in  keeping  a  controlling  hand  on  the 
affairs  of  stronger  Assyria.  We  shall  see  later 
how  much  prestige  great  Ninevite  war-lords 


62  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

could  gain  even  among  their  own  countrymen 
by  Marduk's  formal  acknowledgment  of  their 
sovereignty,  and  how  much  they  lost  by  dis- 
regarding him  and  doing  injury  to  his  local 
habitation.  At  their  very  strongest  the 
Assyrian  kings  were  never  credited  with  the 
natural  right  to  rule  Semitic  Asia  which  be- 
longed to  kings  of  Babylon.  If  they  desired 
the  favour  of  Marduk  they  must  needs  claim 
it  at  the  sword's  point,  and  when  that  point 
was  lowered,  his  favour  was  always  withdrawn. 
From  first  to  last  they  had  perforce  to  remain 
military  tyrants,  who  relied  on  no  acknow- 
ledged legitimacy  but  on  the  spears  of  conscript 
peasants,  and  at  the  last  of  mercenaries.  No 
dynasty  lasted  long  in  Assyria,  where  popular 
generals,  even  while  serving  on  distant  cam- 
paigns, were  often  elevated  to  the  throne — 
in  anticipation  of  the  imperial  history  of 
Rome. 

It  appears  then  that  our  traveller  would 
have  found  Babylonia,  rather  than  Assyria, 
the  leading  East  Semitic  power  in  1000  b.c.  ; 
but  at  the  same  time  not  a  strong  power,  for 
she  had  no  imperial  dominion  outside  lower 
Mesopotamia.     Since  a  dynasty,  whose  history 


THE   EAST   IN   1000   B.C.  68 

is  obscure— the  so-called  Pashe  kings  in  whose 
time  there  was  one  strong  man,  Nabu-Kudur- 
usur    (Nebuchadnezzar)    I — came   to   an    in- 
glorious end  just  about  1000  B.C.,  one  may 
infer  that  Babylonia  was  passing  at  this  epoch 
through  one  of  those  recurrent  political  crises 
which  usually  occurred  when  Sumerian  cities 
of  the  southern  "  Sea-Land  "  conspired  with 
some    foreign    invader    against    the    Semitic 
capital.     The  contumacious  survivors  of  the 
elder    element   in   the   population,   however, 
even    when    successful,    seem    not    to    have 
tried    to    set    up    new    capitals    or    to   re- 
establish   the    pre-Semitic    state    of    things. 
Babylon  had  so  far  distanced  all  the  older 
cities   now  that   no  other,  consummation  of 
revolt  was  desired  or  believed  possible  than 
the  substitution  of  one  dynasty  for  another 
on  the  throne  beloved  of  Marduk.     Sumerian 
forces,  however,  had  not  been  the  only  ones 
which  had  contributed  to  overthrow  the  last 
king  of  the  Pash6  dynasty.     Nomads  of  the 
Suti  tribes  had  long  been  raiding  from  the 
western   deserts   into   Akkad;    and   the   first 
king  set  up  by  the  victorious  peoples  of  the 
Sea-Land  had  to  expel  them  and  to  repair 


64  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

their  ravages  before  he  could  seat  himself  on  a 
throne  which  was  menaced  by  Elam  on  the 
east  and  Assyria  on  the  north,  and  must  fall 
so  soon  as  either  of  these  found  a  strong 
leader. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    EAST   IN    800    B.C. 

Two  centuries  have  passed  over  the  East, 
and  at  first  sight  it  looks  as  if  no  radical 
change  has  taken  place  in  its  political  or 
social  condition.  No  new  power  has  entered 
it  from  without;  only  one  new  state  of  im- 
portance, the  Phrygian,  has  arisen  within. 
The  peoples,  which  were  of  most  account  in 
1000,  are  still  of  the  most  account  in  800 — 
the  Assyrians,  the  Babylonians,  the  Mushki 
of  Cappadocia,  the  tribesmen  of  Urartu,  the 
Aramaeans  of  Damascus,  the  trading  Phoeni- 
cians on  the  Syrian  coast  and  the  trading 
Greeks  on  the  Anatolian.  Egypt  has  re- 
mained behind  her  frontier  except  for  one 
raid  into  Palestine  about  925  B.C.,  from  which 
Sheshenk,  the  Libyan,  brought  back  treasures 
of  Solomon's  temple  to  enhance  the  splendour 
of  Amen.  Arabia  has  not  begun  to  matter. 
There  has  been,  of  course,  development,  but 

£  65 


66  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

on  old  lines.  The  comparative  values  of 
the  states  have  altered  :  some  have  become 
more  decisively  the  superiors  of  others  than 
they  were  two  hundred  years  ago,  but  they 
are  those  whose  growth  was  foreseen.  Wherein, 
then,  lies  the  great  difference?  For  great 
difference  there  is.  It  scarcely  needs  a 
second  glance  to  detect  the  change,  and  any 
one  who  looks  narrowly  will  see  not  only 
certain  consequent  changes,  but  in  more  than 
one  quarter  signs  and  warnings  of  a  coming 
order  of  things  not  dreamt  of  in  1000  B.C. 

§  1.  Middle  Kingdom  of  Assyria 

The  obvious  novelty  is  the  presence  of  a 
predominant  power.  The  mosaic  of  small 
states  is  still  there,  but  one  holds  lordship 
over  most  of  them,  and  that  one  is  Assyria. 
Moreover,  the  foreign  dominion  which  the 
latter  has  now  been  enjoying  for  three-parts  of 
a  century  is  the  first  of  its  kind  established  by 
an  Asiatic  power.  Twice,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
Assyria  conquered  in  earlier  times  an  empire 
of  the  nomad  Semitic  type,  that  is,  a  licence 
to  raid  unchecked  over  a  wide  tract  of  lands ; 
but,  so  far  as  we  know,  neither  Shalmaneser 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  67 

I  nor  Tiglath  Pileser  I  had  so  much  as  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  holding  the  raided  provinces 
by  a  permanent  official  organization.  But  in 
the  ninth  century,  when  Ashurnatsirpal  and 
his  successor  Shalmaneser,  second  of  the 
name,  marched  out  year  by  year,  they  passed 
across  wide  territories  held  for  them  by 
governors  and  garrisons,  before  they  reached 
others  upon  which  they  hoped  to  impose  like 
fetters.  We  find  Shalmaneser  II,  for  ex- 
ample, in  the  third  year  of  his  reign,  fortifying, 
renaming,  garrisoning  and  endowing  with  a 
royal  palace  the  town  of  Til  Barsip  on  the 
Euphrates  bank,  the  better  to  secure  for 
himself  free  passage  at  will  across  the  river. 
He  has  finally  deprived  Ahuni  its  local 
Aramaean  chief,  and  holds  the  place  as  an 
Assyrian  fortress.  Thus  far  had  the  Assyrian 
advanced  his  territorial  empire  but  not  farther. 
Beyond  Euphrates  he  would,  indeed,  push 
year  by  year,  even  to  Phoenicia  and  Damascus 
and  Cilicia,  but  merely  to  raid,  levy  black- 
mail and  destroy,  like  the  old  emperors  of 
Babylonia  or  his  own  imperial  predecessors 
of  Assyria. 

There  was  then  much  of  the  old  destructive 
instinct  in  Shalmaneser's  conception  of  empire ; 


68  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

but  a  constructive  principle  also  was  at  work 
modifying  that  conception.  If  the  Great  King 
was  still  something  of  a  Bedawi  Emir,  bound 
to  go  a-raiding  summer  by  summer,  he  had 
conceived,  like  Mohammed  ibn  Rashid,  the 
Arabian  prince  of  Jebel  Shammar  in  our  own 
days,  the  idea  of  extending  his  territorial 
dominion,  so  that  he  might  safely  and  easily 
reach  fresh  fields  for  wider  raids.  If  we  may 
use  modern  formulas  about  an  ancient  and 
imperfectly  realized  imperial  system,  we  should 
describe  the  dominion  of  Shalmaneser  II  as 
made  up  (over  and  above  its  Assyrian  core) 
of  a  wide  circle  of  foreign  territorial  possessions 
which  included  Babylonia  on  the  south,  all 
Mesopotamia  on  the  west  and  north,  and  every- 
thing up  to  Zagros  on  the  east;  of  a  "  sphere 
of  exclusive  influence  "  extending  to  Lake  Van 
on  the  north,  while  on  the  west  it  reached 
beyond  the  Euphrates  into  mid-Syria;  and, 
lastly,  of  a  licence  to  raid  as  far  as  the  frontiers 
of  Egypt.  Shalmaneser's  later  expeditions  all 
passed  the  frontiers  of  that  sphere  of  influence. 
Having  already  crossed  the  Amanus  moun- 
tains seven  times,  he  was  in  Tarsus  in  his 
twenty-sixth  summer;  Damascus  was  at- 
tacked again  and  again  in  the  middle  of  his 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  69 

reign;    and  even  Jehu  of  Samaria  paid  his 
blackmail  in  the  year  842. . 

Assyria  in  the  ninth  century  must  have 
seemed  by  far  the  strongest  as  well  as  the  most 
oppressive  power  that  the  East  had  known. 
The  reigning  house  was  passing  on  its  authority 
from  father  to  son  in  an  unbroken  dynastic 
succession,  which  had  not  always  been,  and 
would  seldom  thereafter  be,  the  rule.  Its 
court  was  fixed  securely  in  midmost  Assyria, 
away  from  priest-ridden  Asshur,  which  seems 
to  have  been  always  anti-imperial  and  pro- 
Babylonian;  for  Ashurnatsirpal  had  restored 
Calah  to  the  capital  rank  which  it  had  held 
under  Shalmaneser  I  but  lost  under  Tiglath 
Pileser,  and  there  the  kings  of  the  Middle 
Empire  kept  their  throne.  The  Assyrian 
armies  were  as  yet  neither  composed  of 
soldiers  of  fortune,  nor,  it  appears,  swelled 
by  such  heterogeneous  provincial  levies  as 
would  follow  the  Great  Kings  of  Asia  in  later 
days;  but  they  were  still  recruited  from 
the  sturdy  peasantry  of  Assyria  itself.  The 
monarch  was  an  absolute  autocrat  directing 
a  supreme  military  despotism.  Surely  such 
a  power  could  not  but  endure.  Endure, 
indeed,  it  would  for  more  than  two  centuries. 


70  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

But  it  was  not  so  strong  as  it  appeared. 
Before  the  century  of  Ashurnatsirpal  and 
Shalmaneser  II  was  at  an  end,  certain  inherent 
germs  of  corporate  decay  had  developed  apace 
ia  its  system. 

Natural  law  appears  to  decree  that  a 
family  stock,  whose  individual  members  have 
every  opportunity  and  licence  for  sensual 
indulgence,  shall  deteriorate  both  physically 
and  mentally  at  an  ever-increasing  rate. 
Therefore,  pari  passu,  an  Empire  which  is 
so  absolutely  autocratic  that  the  monarch 
is  its  one  mainspring  of  government,  grows 
weaker  as  it  descends  from  father  to  son. 
Its  one  chance  of  conserving  some  of  its 
pristine  strength  is  to  develop  a  bureaucracy 
which,  if  inspired  by  the  ideas  and  methods 
of  earlier  members  of  the  dynasty,  may 
continue  to  realize  them  in  a  crystallized 
system  of  administration.  This  chance  the 
Middle  Assyrian  Kingdom  never  was  at  any 
pains  to  take.  There  is  evidence  for  delega- 
tion of  military  power  by  its  Great  Kings 
to  a  headquarter  staff,  and  for  organiza- 
tion of  military  control  in  the  provinces, 
but   none   for   such    delegation    of   the    civil 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  71 

power  as  might  have  fostered  a  bureaucracy. 
Therefore  that  concentration  of  power  in 
single  hands,  which  at  first  had  been  an 
element  of  strength,  came  to  breed  increas- 
ing weakness  as  one  member  of  the  dynasty 
succeeded  another. 

Again,  the  irresistible  Assyrian  armies, 
which  had  been  led  abroad  summer  by 
summer,  were  manned  for  some  generations 
by  sturdy  peasants  drawn  from  the  fields  of 
the  Middle  Tigris  basin,  chiefly  those  on  the 
left  bank.  The  annual  razzia,  however,  is  a 
Bedawi  institution,  proper  to  a  semi-nomadic 
society  which  cultivates  little  and  that 
lightly,  and  can  leave  such  agricultural,  and 
also  such  pastoral,  work  as  must  needs  be 
done  in  summer  to  its  old  men,  its  young 
folk  and  its  women,  without  serious  loss. 
But  a  settled  labouring  population  which  has 
deep  lands  to  till,  a  summer  crop  to  raise  and 
an  irrigation  system  to  maintain  is  in  very 
different  case.  The  Assyrian  kings,  by  calling 
on  their  agricultural  peasantry,  spring  after 
spring,  to  resume  the  life  of  militant  nomads, 
not  only  exhausted  the  sources  of  their  own 
wealth  and  stability,  but  bred  deep  discontent. 


72  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

As  the  next  two  centuries  pass  more  and  more 
will  be  heard  of  depletion  and  misery  in  the 
Assyrian  lands.  Already  before  800  we  have 
the  spectacle  of  the  agricultural  district  of 
Arbela  rebelling  against  Shalmaneser's  sons, 
and  after  being  appeased  with  difficulty, 
rising  again  against  Adadnirari  III  in  a  revolt 
which  is  still  active  when  the  century  closes. 
Lastly,  this  militant  monarchy,  whose  life 
was  war,  was  bound  to  make  implacable 
enemies  both  within  and  without.  Among 
those  within  were  evidently  the  priests,  whose 
influence  was  paramount  at  Asshur.  Re- 
membering who  it  was  that  had  given  the 
first  independent  king  to  Assyria  they 
resented  that  their  city,  the  chosen  seat  of 
the  earlier  dynasties,  which  had  been  restored 
to  primacy  by  the  great  Tiglath  Pileser, 
should  fall  permanently  to  the  second  rank. 
So  we  find  Asshur  joining  the  men  of 
Arbela  in  both  the  rebellions  mentioned 
above,  and  it  appears  always  to  have  been 
ready  to  welcome  attempts  by  the  Babylonian 
Semites  to  regain  their  old  predominance  over 
Southern  Assyria. 


THE   EAST   IN  800   B.C.  73 

§2.  Urartu 

As  we  should  expect  from  geographical 
circumstances,  Assyria's  most  perilous  and 
persistent  foreign  enemies  were  the  fierce 
hillmen  of  the  north.  In  the  east,  storms 
were  brewing  behind  the  mountains,  but  they 
were  not  yet  ready  to  burst.  South  and  west 
lay  either  settled  districts  of  old  civilization 
not  disposed  to  fight,  or  ranging  grounds 
of  nomads  too  widely  scattered  and  too  ill 
organized  to  threaten  serious  danger.  But 
the  north  was  in  different  case.  The  wild 
valleys,  through  which  descend  the  left  bank 
affluents  of  the  Upper  Tigris,  have  always 
sheltered  fierce  fighting  clans,  covetous  of 
the  winter  pasturage  and  softer  climate  of 
the  northern  Mesopotamian  downs,  and  it 
has  been  the  anxious  care  of  one  Mesopo- 
tamian power  after  another,  even  to  our  own 
day,  to  devise  measures  for  penning  them 
back.  Since  the  chief  weakness  of  these 
tribes  lies  in  a  lack  of  unity  which  the  sub- 
divided nature  of  their  country  encourages, 
it  must  have  caused  no  small  concern  to  the 
Assyrians  that,  early  in  the  ninth  century. 


74  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

a  Kingdom  of  Urartu  or,  as  its  own  people 
called  it,  Khaldia,  should  begin  to  gain  power 
over  the  communities  about  Lake  Van  and 
the  heads  of  the  valleys  which  run  down  to 
Assyrian  territory.  Both  Ashurnatsirpal  and 
Shalmaneser  led  raid  after  raid  into  the 
northern  mountains  in  the  hope  of  weakening 
the  tribes  from  whose  adhesion  that  Vannic 
Kingdom  might  derive  strength.  Both  kings 
marched  more  than  once  up  to  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  Urmia  Lake,  and  Shalmaneser 
struck  at  the  heart  of  Urartu  itself  three  or 
four  times;  but  with  inconclusive  success. 
The  Vannic  state  continued  to  flourish  and 
its  kings — whose  names  are  more  European 
in  sound  than  Asiatic — Lutipris,  Sarduris, 
Menuas,  Argistis,  Rusas — built  themselves 
strong  fortresses  which  stand  to  this  day 
about  Lake  Van,  and  borrowed  a  script  from 
their  southern  foes  to  engrave  rocks  with 
records  of  successful  wars.  One  of  these  in- 
scriptions occurs  as  far  west  as  the  left  bank  of 
Euphrates  over  against  Malatia.  By  800  b.c, 
in  spite  of  efforts  made  by  Shalmaneser's  sons 
to  continue  their  father's  policy  of  pushing  the 
war  into  the  enemy's  country,  the  Vannic  king 
had  succeeded  in  replacing  Assyrian  influence 


THE   EAST   IN   800    B.C.  75 

by  the  law  of  Khaldia  in  the  uppermost  basin 
of  the  Tigris  and  in  higher  Mesopotamia — ^the 
"  Nairi  "  lands  of  Assyrian  scribes ;  and  his 
successors  would  raid  farther  and  farther 
into  the  plains  during  the  coming  age. 

§  3.  The  Medes 

Menacing  as  this  power  of  Urartu  appeared 
at  the  end  of  the  ninth  century  to  an  en- 
feebled Assyrian  dynasty,  there  were  two 
other  racial  groups,  lately  arrived  on  its 
horizon,  which  in  the  event  would  prove 
more  really  dangerous.  One  of  these  lay 
along  the  no-rth-eastern  frontier  on  the  farther 
slopes  of  the  Zagros  mountains  and  on  the 
plateau  beyond.  It  was  apparently  a  com- 
posite people  which  had  been  going  through 
a  slow  process  of  formation  and  growth. 
One  element  in  it  seems  to  have  been  of  the 
same  blood  as  a  strong  pastoral  population 
which  was  then  ranging  the  steppes  of  southern 
Russia  and  west  central  Asia,  and  would  come 
to  be  known  vaguely  to  the  earliest  Greeks 
as  Cimmerians,  and  scarcely  less  precisely 
to  their  descendants,  as  Scyths.  Its  name 
would    be  a    household    word    in    the    East 


76  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

before  long.  A  trans-Caucasian  offshoot  of 
this  had  settled  in  modern  Azerbaijan,  where 
for  a  long  time  past  it  had  been  receiving 
gradual  reinforcements  of  eastern  migrants, 
belonging  to  what  is  called  the  Iranian  group 
of  Aryans.  Filtering  through  the  passage 
between  the  Caspian  range  and  the  salt 
desert,  which  Teheran  now  guards,  these 
Iranians  spread  out  over  north-west  Persia 
and  southwards  into  the  well -watered  country 
on  the  western  edge  of  the  plateau,  over- 
looking the  lowlands  of  the  Tigris  basin. 
Some  part  of  them,  under  the  name  Parsua, 
seems  to  have  settled  down  as  far  north  as 
the  western  shores  of  Lake  Urmia,  on  the 
edge  of  the  Ararat  kingdom;  another  part 
as  far  south  as  the  borders  of  Elam.  Be- 
tween these  extreme  points  the  immigrants 
appear  to  have  amalgamated  with  the  settled 
Scyths,  and  in  virtue  of  racial  superiority  to 
have  become  predominant  partners  in  the 
combination.  At  some  uncertain  period — 
probably  before  800  B.C. — there  had  arisen 
from  the  Iranian  element  an  individual, 
Zoroaster,  who  converted  his  people  from 
element-worship  to  a  spiritual  belief  in 
personal  divinity ;   and  by  this  reform  of  cult 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  77 

both  raised  its  social  status  and  gave  it 
political  cohesion.  The  East  began  to  know 
and  fear  the  combination  under  the  name 
Manda,  and  from  Shalmaneser  II  onwards 
the  Assyrian  kings  had  to  devote  ever  more 
attention  to  the  Manda  country,  raiding  it, 
sacking  it,  exacting  tribute  from  it,  but  all 
the  while  betraying  their  grooving  consciousness 
that  a  grave  peril  lurked  behind  Zagros,  the 
peril  of  the  Medes.^ 

§  4.  The  Chaldeans 

The  other  danger,  the  more  imminent  of 
the  two,  threatened  Assyria  from  the  south. 
Once  again  a  Semitic  immigration,  which  we 
distinguish  as  Chaldaean  from  earlier  Semitic 
waves,  Canaanite  and  Aramaean,  had  breathed 
fresh  vitality  into  the  Babylonian  people. 
It  came,  like  earlier  waves,  out  of  Arabia, 

^  I  venture  to  adhere  throughout  to  the  old  identifica- 
tion of  the  Manda  power,  which  ultimately  overthrew 
Assyria,  with  the  Medes,  in  spite  of  high  authorities  who 
nowadays  assume  that  the  latter  played  no  part  in  that 
overthrow,  but  have  been  introduced  into  this  chapter  of 
history  by  an  erroneous  identification  made  by  Greeks. 
I  cannot  believe  that  both  Greek  and  Hebrew  authorities 
of  very  little  later  date  both  fell  into  such  an  error. 


78  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

which,  for  certain  reasons,  has  been  in  all  ages 
a  prime  source  of  ethnic  disturbance  in  West 
Asia.  The  great  southern  peninsula  is  for  the 
most  part  a  highland  steppe  endowed  with 
a  singularly  pure  air  and  an  uncontaminated 
soil.  It  breeds,  consequently,  a  healthy 
population  whose  natality,  compared  to  its 
death-rate,  is  unusually  high;  but  since  the 
peculiar  conditions  of  its  surface  and  climate 
preclude  the  development  of  its  internal  food- 
supply  beyond  a  point  long  ago  reached,  the 
surplus  population  which  rapidly  accumulates 
within  it  is  forced  from  time  to  time  to  seek 
its  sustenance  elsewhere.  The  difficulties  of 
the  roads  to  the  outer  world  being  what  they 
are  (not  to  speak  of  the  certainty  of  opposition 
at  the  other  end),  the  intending  emigrants 
rarely  set  out  in  small  bodies,  but  move  rest- 
lessly within  their  own  borders  until  they  are 
grown  to  a  horde,  which  famine  and  hostility 
at  home  compel  at  last  to  leave  Arabia.  As 
hard  to  arrest  as  their  own  blown  sands,  the 
moving  Arabs  fall  on  the  nearest  fertile  regions, 
there  to  plunder,  fight,  and  eventually  settle 
down.  So  in  comparatively  modern  times 
have  the  Shammar  tribesmen  moved  into  Syria 
and  Mesopotamia,  and  so  in  antiquity  moved 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  79 

the  Canaanites,  the  Aramaeans,  and  the 
Chaldaeans.  We  find  the  latter  already  well 
established  by  900  B.C.  not  only  in  the  "  Sea 
Land"  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  but  also 
between  the  Rivers.  The  Kings  of  Babylon, 
who  opposed  Ashurnatsirpal  and  Shalmaneser 
II,  seem  to  have  been  of  Chaldaean  extraction  ; 
and  although  their  successors,  down  to  800 
B.C.,  acknowledged  the  suzerainty  of  Assyria, 
they  ever  strove  to  repudiate  it,  looking  for 
help  to  Elam  or  the  western  desert  tribes. 
The  times,  however,  were  not  quite  ripe. 
The  century  closed  with  the  reassertion  of 
Assyrian  power  in  Babylon  itself  by  Adad- 
nirari. 

§  5.  Syrian  Expansion  of  Assyria 

Such  were  the  dangers  which,  as  we  now 
know,  lurked  on  the  horizon  of  the  Northern 
Semites  in  800  B.C.  But  they  had  not  yet 
become  patent  to  the  world,  in  whose  eyes 
Assyria  seemed  still  an  irresistible  power 
pushing  ever  farther  and  farther  afield.  The 
west  offered  the  most  attractive  field  for  her 
expansion.  There  lay  the  fragments  of  the 
Hatti  Empire,  enjoying  the  fruits  of  Hatti 


80  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

civilization ;  there  were  the  wealthy  Aramaean 
states,  and  still  richer  Phoenician  ports.  There 
urban  life  was  well  developed,  each  city 
standing  for  itself,  sufficient  in  its  territory, 
and  living  more  or  less  on  the  caravan  trade 
which  perforce  passed  under  or  near  its 
walls  between  Egypt  on  the  one  hand  and 
Mesopotamia  and  Asia  Minor  on  the  other. 
Never  was  a  fairer  field  for  hostile  enterprise, 
or  one  more  easily  harried  without  fear  of 
reprisal,  and  well  knowing  this,  Assyria  set 
herself  from  Ashm^natsirpaPs  time  forward 
systematically  to  bully  and  fleece  Syria.  It 
was  almost  the  yearly  practice  of  Shalmaneser 
II  to  march  down  to  the  Middle  Euphrates, 
ferry  his  army  across,  and  levy  blackmail  on 
Carchemish  and  the  other  north  Syrian  cities 
as  far  as  Cilicia  on  the  one  hand  and  Damascus 
on  the  other.  That  done,  he  would  send 
forward  envoys  to  demand  ransom  of  the 
Phoenician  towns,  who  grudgingly  paid  it  or 
rashly  withheld  it  according  to  the  measure 
of  his  compulsion.  Since  last  we  looked  at 
the  Aramaean  states,  Damascus  has  definitely 
asserted  the  supremacy  which  her  natural 
advantages  must  always  secure  to  her  when- 
ever Syria  is  not  under  foreign  domination. 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  81 

Her  fighting  dynasty  of  Benhadads  which  had 
been  founded,  it  seems,  more  than  a  century 
before  Shalmaneser's  time,  had  now  spread  her 
influence  right  across  Syria  from  east  to  west 
and  into  the  territories  of  Hamath  on  the  north 
and  of  the  Hebrews  on  the  south.  Ashurnat- 
sirpal  had  never  ventured  to  do  more  than 
summon  at  long  range  the  lord  of  this  large  and 
wealthy  state  to  contribute  to  his  coffers  ;  but 
this  tributary  obligation,  if  ever  admitted,  was 
continually  disregarded,  and  Shalmaneser  II 
found  he  must  take  bolder  measures  or  be 
content  to  see  his  raiding-parties  restricted 
to  the  already  harried  north.  He  chose  the 
bold  course,  and  struck  at  Hamath,  the 
northernmost  Damascene  dependency,  in  his 
seventh  summer.  A  notable  victory,  won  at 
Karkar  on  the  Middle  Orontes  over  an  army 
which  included  contingents  from  most  of  the 
south  Semitic  states — one  came,  for  example, 
from  Israel,  where  Ahab  was  now  king, — 
opened  a  way  towards  the  Aramaean  capital ; 
but  it  was  not  till  twelve  years  later  that 
the  Great  King  actually  attacked  Damascus. 
But  he  failed  to  crown  his  successes  with  its 
capture,  and  reinvigorated  by  the  accession 
of  a  new  dynasty,  which  Hazael,  a  leader 


82  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

in  war,  founded  in  842,  Damascus  continued 
to  bar  the  Assyrians  from  full  enjoyment  of 
the  southern  lands  for  another  century. 

Nevertheless,  though  Shalmaneser  and  his 
djniastic  successors  down  to  Adadnirari  III 
were  unable  to  enter  Palestine,  the  shadow 
of  Assyrian  Empire  was  beginning  to  creep 
over  Israel.  The  internal  dissensions  of  the 
latter,  and  its  fear  and  jealousy  of  Damascus 
had  already  done  much  to  make  ultimate  dis- 
aster certain.  In  the  second  generation  after 
David  the  radical  incompatibility  between  the 
northern  and  southern  Hebrew  tribes,  which 
under  his  strong  hand  and  that  of  his  son  had 
seemed  one  nation,  reasserted  its  disinte- 
grating influence.  While  it  is  not  certain  if 
the  twelve  tribes  were  ever  all  of  one  race,  it 
is  quite  certain  that  the  northern  ones  had 
come  to  be  contaminated  very  largely  with 
Aramaean  blood  and  infected  by  mid-Syrian 
influences,  which  the  relations  established  and 
maintained  by  David  and  Solomon  with  Ha- 
math  and  Phoenicia  no  doubt  had  accentuated, 
especially  in  the  territories  of  Asher  and  Dan. 
These  tribes  and  some  other  northerners  had 
never  seen  eye  to  eye  with  the  southern  tribes 
in  a  matter  most  vital  to  Semitic  societies, 


THE   EAST   IN   800    B.C.  83 

religious  ideal  and  practice.  The  anthro- 
pomorphic monotheism,  which  the  southern 
tribes  brought  up  from  Arabia,  had  to  contend 
in  Galilee  with  theriomorphic  polytheism,  that 
is,  the  tendency  to  embody  the  qualities  of 
divinity  in  animal  forms.  For  such  beliefs  as 
these  there  is  ample  evidence  in  the  Judaean 
tradition,  even  during  the  pre -Palestinian 
wanderings .  Both  reptile  and  bovine  incarna  - 
tions  manifest  themselves  in  the  story  of  the 
Exodus,  and  despite  the  fervent  missionary 
efforts  of  a  series  of  Prophets,  and  the  adhesion 
of  many,  even  among  the  northern  tribes- 
men, to  the  more  spiritual  creed,  these  cults 
gathered  force  in  the  congenial  neighbour- 
hood of  Aramaeans  and  Phoenicians,  till  they 
led  to  political  separation  of  the  north  from 
the  south  as  soon  as  the  long  reign  of 
Solomon  was  ended.  Thereafter,  until  the 
catastrophe  of  the  northern  tribes,  there  would 
never  more  be  a  united  Hebrew  nation.  The 
northern  kingdom,  harried  by  Damascus  and 
forced  to  take  unwilling  part  in  her  quarrels, 
looked  about  for  foreign  help.  The  dynasty 
of  Onari,  who,  in  order  to  secure  control  of  the 
great  North  Road,  had  built  himself  a  capital 
and  a  palace  (lately  discovered)  on  the  hill  of 


84  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

Samaria,  relied  chiefly  on  Tyre.  The  succeed- 
ing dynasty,  that  of  Jehu,  who  had  rebelled 
against  Omri's  son  and  his  Phoenician  queen, 
courted  Assyria,  and  encouraged  her  to  press 
ever  harder  on  Damascus.  It  was  a  suicidal 
policy  ;  for  in  the  continued  existence  of 
a  strong  Aramaean  state  on  her  north  lay 
Israel's  one  hope  of  long  life.  Jeroboam  II 
and  his  Prophet  Jonah  ought  to  have  seen 
that  the  day  of  reckoning  would  come  quickly 
for  Samaria  when  once  Assyria  had  settled 
accounts  with  Damascus. 

To  some  extent,  but  unfortunately  not  in 
all  detail,  we  can  trace  in  the  royal  records 
the  advance  of  Assyrian  territorial  dominion 
in  the  west.  The  first  clear  indication  of  its 
expansion  is  afforded  by  a  notice  of  the 
permanent  occupation  of  a  position  on  the 
eastern  bank  of  the  Euphrates,  as  a  base 
for  the  passage  of  the  river.  This  position 
was  Til  Barsip,  situated  opposite  the  mouth 
of  the  lowest  Syrian  affluent,  the  Sajur,  and 
formerly  capital  of  an  Aramaean  principate. 
That  its  occupation  by  Shalmaneser  II  in 
the  third  year  of  his  reign  was  intended  to 
be  lasting  is  proved  by  its  receiving  a  new 
name  and  becoming  a  royal  Assyrian  residence. 


THE   EAST   IN  800   B.C.  85 

Two  basaltic  lions,  which  the  Great  King  then 
set  up  on  each  side  of  its  Mesopotamian  gate 
and  inscribed  with  commemorative  texts,  have 
recently  been  found  near  Tell  Ahmar,  the 
modern  hamlet  which  has  succeeded  the  royal 
city.  This  measure  marked  Assyria's  definite 
annexation  of  the  lands  in  Mesopotamia,  which 
had  been  under  Aramaean  government  for 
at  least  a  century  and  a  half.  When  this 
government  had  been  established  there  we 
do  not  certainly  know;  but  the  collapse 
of  Tiglath  Pileser's  power  about  1100  b.c. 
so  nearly  follows  the  main  Aramaean  invasion 
from  the  south  that  it  seems  probable  this 
invasion  had  been  in  great  measure  the  cause 
of  that  collapse,  and  that  an  inunediate 
consequence  was  the  formation  of  Aramaean 
states  east  of  Euphrates.  The  strongest  of 
them  and  the  last  to  succumb  to  Assyria 
was  Bit-Adini,  the  district  west  of  Harran, 
of  which  Til  Barsip  had  been  the  leading 
town. 

The  next  stage  of  Assyrian  expansion  is 
marked  by  a  similar  occupation  of  a  position 
on  the  Syrian  side  of  the  Euphrates,  to  cover 
the  landing  and  be  a  gathering-place  of  tribute. 
Here  stood  Pitru,  formerly  a  Hatti  town  and, 


86  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

perhaps,  the  Biblical  Pethor,  situated  beside 
the  Sajur  on  some  site  not  yet  identified, 
but  probably  near  the  outfall  of  the  stream. 
It  received  an  Assyrian  name  in  Shalmaneser's 
sixth  year,  and  was  used  afterwards  as  a  base 
for  all  his  operations  in  Syria.  It  served 
also  to  mask  and  overawe  the  larger  and  more 
wealthy  city  of  Carchemish,  a  few  miles  north, 
which  would  remain  for  a  long  time  to  come 
free  of  permanent  Assyrian  occupation,  though 
subjected  to  blackmail  on  the  occasion  of 
every  western  raid  by  the  Great  King. 

With  this  last  westward  advance  of  his 
permanent  territorial  holding,  Shalmaneser 
appears  to  have  rested  content.  He  was  sure 
of  the  Euphrates  passage  and  had  made  his 
footing  good  on  the  Syrian  bank.  But  we 
cannot  be  certain ;  for,  though  his  known 
records  mention  the  renaming  of  no  other 
Syrian  cities,  many  may  have  been  renamed 
without  happening  to  be  mentioned  in  the 
records,  and  others  may  have  been  occupied 
by  standing  Assyrian  garrisons  without  re- 
ceiving new  names.  Be  that  as  it  may,  we 
can  trace,  year  by  year,  the  steady  pushing 
forward  of  Assyrian  raiding  columns  into  inner 
Syria.     In   854   Shalmaneser's    most  distant 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  87 

base  of  operations  was  fixed  at  Khalman 
(Aleppo),  whence  he  marched  to  the  Orontes 
to  fight,  near  the  site  of  later  Apamea,  the 
battle  of  Karkar.  Five  years  later,  swooping 
down  from  a  Cilician  raid,  he  entered  Hamath. 
Six  more  years  passed  before  he  made  more 
ground  to  the  south,  though  he  invaded 
Syria  again  in  force  at  least  once  during  the 
interval.  In  842,  however,  having  taken  a 
new  road  along  the  coast,  he  turned  inland 
from  Beirut,  crossed  Lebanon  and  Anti- 
Lebanon,  and  succeeded  in  reaching  the  oasis 
of  Damascus  and  even  in  raiding  some 
distance  towards  the  Hauran;  but  he  did 
not  take  (perhaps,  like  the  Bedawi  Emir  he 
was,  he  did  not  try  to  take)  the  fenced  city 
itself.  He  seems  to  have  repeated  his  visit 
three  years  later,  but  never  to  have  gone 
farther.  Certainly  he  never  secured  to  himself 
Phoenicia,  Coele-Syria  or  Damascus,  and  still 
less  Palestine,  by  any  permanent  organization. 
Indeed,  as  has  been  said,  we  have  no  warrant 
for  asserting  that  in  his  day  Assyria  definitely 
incorporated  in  her  territorial  empire  any 
part  of  Syria  except  that  one  outpost  of 
observation  established  at  Pitru  on  the  Sajur. 
Nor  can  more  be  credited  to  Shalmaneser's 


88  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

immediate  successors ;  but  it  must  be  under- 
stood that  by  the  end  of  the  century  Adad- 
nirari  had  extended  Assyria's  sphere  of 
influence  (as  distinct  from  her  territorial 
holding)  somewhat  farther  south  to  include 
not  only  Phoenicia  but  also  northern  Philistia 
and  Palestine  with  the  arable  districts  east 
of  Jordan. 


§  6.    CiLICIA 

When  an  Assyrian  emperor  crossed 
Euphrates  and  took  up  quarters  in  Pitru 
to  receive  the  submission  of  the  western 
chiefs  and  collect  his  forces  for  raiding  the 
lands  of  any  who  might  be  slow  to  comply, 
he  was  much  nearer  the  frontiers  of  Asia 
Minor  than  those  of  Phoenicia  or  the  Kingdom 
of  Damascus.  Yet  on  three  occasions  out 
of  four,  the  lords  of  the  Middle  Assyrian 
Kingdom  were  content  to  harry  once  again 
the  oft-phmdered  lands  of  mid-Sjrria,  and  on 
the  fourth,  if  they  turned  northward  at  all, 
they  advanced  no  farther  than  eastern  Cilicia, 
that  is,  little  beyond  the  horizon  which  they 
might  actually  see  on  a  clear  day  from  any 
high  ground  near  Pitru.     Yet  on  the  other 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  89 

side  of  the  snow-streaked  wall  which  bounded 
the  northward  view  lay  desirable  kingdoms, 
Khanigalbat  with  its  capital,  Milid,  comprising 
the  fertile  district  which  later  would  be  part 
of  Cataonia;  Tabal  to  west  of  it,  extending 
over  the  rest  of  Cataonia  and  southern 
Cappadocia ;  and  Kas,  possessing  the  Tyanitis 
and  the  deep  Lycaonian  plain.  Why,  then, 
did  those  imperial  robbers  in  the  ninth 
century  so  long  hold  their  hands  from  such 
tempting  prey?  No  doubt,  because  they 
and  their  armies,  which  were  not  yet  re- 
cruited from  other  populations  than  the 
Semites  of  Assyria  proper,  so  far  as  we  know, 
were  by  origin  Arabs,  men  of  the  south,  to 
whom  the  high-lying  plateau  country  beyond 
Taurus  was  just  as  deterrent  as  it  has  been 
to  all  Semites  since.  Tides  of  Arab  invasion, 
surging  again  and  again  to  the  foot  of  the 
Taurus,  have  broken  sometimes  through  the 
passes  and  flowed  in  single  streams  far  on  into 
Asia  Minor,  but  they  have  always  ebbed  again 
as  quickly.  The  repugnance  felt  by  the 
Assyrians  for  Asia  Minor  may  be  contrasted 
with  the  promptitude  which  their  Iranian 
successors  showed  in  invading  the  peninsula, 
and   may   be   illustrated   by   all    subsequent 


90  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

history.  No  permanent  footing  was  ever 
established  in  Asia  Minor  by  the  Saracens, 
its  definite  conquest  being  left  to  the  north- 
country  Turks.  The  short-lived  Arab  power 
of  Mehemet  Ali,  which  rebelled  against  the 
Turks  some  eighty  years  ago,  advanced  on 
to  the  plateau  only  to  recede  at  once  and 
remain  behind  the  Taurus.  The  present 
dividing  line  of  peoples  which  speak  re- 
spectively Arabic  and  Turkish  marks  the 
Semite's  immemorial  limit.  So  soon  as  the 
land-level  of  northern  Syria  attains  a  mean 
altitude  of  2500  feet,  the  Arab  tongue  is 
chilled  to  silence. 

We  shall  never  find  Assyrian  armies,  there- 
fore, going  far  or  staying  long  beyond  Taurus. 
But  we  shall  find  them  going  constantly,  and 
as  a  matter  of  course,  into  Cilicia,  notwith- 
standing the  high  mountain  wall  of  Amanus 
which  divides  it  from  Syria.  Cilicia — all  that 
part  of  it  at  least  which  the  Assyrians  used 
to  raid — lies  low,  faces  south  and  is  shielded 
by  high  mountains  from  northerly  and  easterly 
chills.  It  enjoys,  indeed,  a  warmer  and  more 
equable  climate  than  any  part  of  Syria,  except 
the  coastal  belt,  and  socially  it  has  always 
been  related  more  nearly  to  the  south  lands 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  91 

than  to  its  own  geographical  whole,  Asia 
Minor.  A  Semitic  element  was  predominant 
in  the  population  of  the  plain,  and  especially 
in  its  chief  town,  Tarsus,  throughout  antiquity. 
So  closely  was  Cilicia  linked  with  Syria 
that  the  Prince  of  Kue  (its  eastern  part) 
j.oined  the  Princes  of  Hamath  and  of 
Damascus  and  their  south  Syrian  allies 
in  that  combination  for  common  defence 
against  Assyrian  aggression,  which  Shal- 
maneser  broke  at  Karkar  in  854  :  and  it  was 
in  order  to  neutralize  an  important  factor 
in  the  defensive  power  of  Syria  that  the  latter 
proceeded  across  Patin  in  849  and  fell  on 
Kue.  But  some  uprising  at  Hamath  recalled 
him  then,  and  it  was  not  till  the  latter  part  of 
his  reign  that  eastern  Cilicia  was  systematically 
subdued. 

Shalmaneser  devoted  a  surprising  amount 
of  attention  to  this  small  and  rather  obscure 
corner  of  Asia  Minor.  He  records  in  his 
twenty-fifth  year  that  already  he  had  crossed 
Amanus  seven  times ;  and  in  the  year  succeed- 
ing we  find  him  again  entering  Cilicia  and 
marching  to  Tarsus  to  unseat  its  prince  and 
put  another  more  pliable  in  his  room.  Since, 
apparently,  he  never  used  Cilicia  as  a  base 


92  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

for  further  operations  in  force  beyond  Taurus, 
being  content  with  a  formal  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  majesty  by  the  Prince  of  Tabal, 
one  is  forced  to  conclude  that  he  invaded 
the  land  for  its  own  sake.  Nearly  three 
centuries  hence,  out  of  the  mist  in  which 
Cilicia  is  veiled  more  persistently  than 
almost  any  other  part  of  the  ancient  East, 
this  small  country  will  loom  up  suddenly 
as  one  of  the  four  chief  powers  of  Asia, 
ruled  by  a  king  who,  hand  in  hand  with 
Nebuchadnezzar  II,  negotiates  a  peace  be- 
tween the  Lydians  and  the  Medes,  each  at 
the  height  of  their  power.  Then  the  mist  will 
close  over  it  once  more,^and  we  shall  hear  next 
to  nothing  of  a  long  line  of  kings  who,  bearing 
a  royal  title  which  was  graecized  under  the 
form  Syennesis,  reigned  at  Tarsus,  having 
little  in  common  with  other  Anatolian  princes. 
But  we  may  reasonably  infer  from  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  pacific  intervention  just 
mentioned  that  Cilician  power  had  been 
growing  for  a  long  time  previous;  and  also 
from  the  frequency  with  which  Shalmaneser 
raided  the  land,  that  already  in  the  ninth 
century  it  was  rich  and  civilized.     We  know 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  93 

it  to  have  been  a  great  centre  of  Sandan 
worship,  and  may  guess  that  its  kings  were 
kin  of  the  Mushki  race  and,  if  not  the  chief 
survivors  of  the  original  stock  which  invaded 
Assyria  in  Tiglath  Pileser's  time,  ranked  at 
least  among  the  chief  inheritors  of  the  old 
Hatti  civilization.  Some  even  date  its  civiliza- 
tion earlier  still,  believing  the  Keftiu,  who 
brought  rich  gifts  to  the  Pharaohs  of  the 
eighteenth  and  succeeding  dynasties,  to  have 
been    Cilicians. 

Unfortunately,  no  scientific  excavation  of 
early  sites  in  Cilicia  has  yet  been  undertaken ; 
but  for  many  years  past  buyers  of  antiquities 
have  been  receiving,  from  Tarsus  and  its 
port,  engraved  stones  and  seals  of  singularly 
fine  workmanship,  which  belong  to  Hittite 
art  but  seem  of  later  date  than  most  of  its 
products.  They  display  in  their  decoration 
certain  peculiar  designs,  which  have  been 
remarked  also  in  Cyprus,  and  present  some 
peculiarities  of  form,  which  occur  also  in  the 
earliest  Ionian  art.  Till  other  evidence  comes 
to  hand  these  little  objects  must  be  our 
witnesses  to  the  existence  of  a  highly 
developed  sub -Hittite  culture  in  Cilicia  which, 


94  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

as  early  as  the  ninth  century,  had  already 
been  refined  by  the  influence  of  the  Greek 
settlements  on  the  Anatolian  coasts  and 
perhaps,  even  earlier,  by  the  Cretan  art  of  the 
JEgesin  area.  Cilician  civilization  offers  a  link 
between  east  and  west  which  is  worth  more 
consideration  and  study  than-  have  been  given 
to  it  by  historians. 

§  7.  Asia  Minor 

Into  Asia  Minor  beyond  Taurus  we  have 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  an  Assyrian  monarch 
of  the  ninth  century  ever  marched  in  person, 
though  several  raiding  columns  visited  Khani- 
galbat  and  Tabal,  and  tributary  acknowledg- 
ment of  Assyrian  dominance  was  made 
intermittently  by  the  princes  of  both  those 
countries  in  the  latter  half  of  Shalmaneser's 
reign.  The  farther  and  larger  part  of  the 
western  peninsula  lay  outside  the  Great 
King's  reach,  and  we  know  as  little  of  it  in 
the  year  800  as,  perhaps,  the  Assyrians 
themselves  knew.  We  do  know,  however, 
that  it  contained  a  strong  principality  centrally 
situated  in  the  southern  part  of  the   basin 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  95 

of  the  Sangarius,  which  the  Asiatic  Greeks 
had  begun  to  know  as  Phrygian.  This  inland 
power  loomed  very  large  in  their  world — so 
large,  indeed,  that  it  masked  Assyria  at 
this  time,  and  passed  in  their  eyes  for  the 
richest  on  earth.  On  the  sole  ground  of 
its  importance  in  early  Greek  legend,  we  are 
quite  safe  in  dating  not  only  its  rise  but 
its  attainment  of  a  dominant  position  to  a 
period  well  before  800  B.C.  But,  in  fact,  there 
are  other  good  grounds  for  believing  that  be- 
fore the  ninth  century  closed  this  principality 
dominated  a  much  wider  area  than  the  later 
Phrygia,  and  that  its  western  borders  had  been 
pushed  outwards  very  nearly  to  the  Ionian 
coast.  In  the  Iliad,  for  example,  the  Phrygians 
are  spoken  of  as  immediate  neighbours  of  the 
Trojans ;  and  a  considerable  body  of  primitive 
Hellenic  legend  is  based  on  the  early  presence 
of  Phrygians  not  only  in  the  Troad  itself,  but 
on  the  central  west  coast  about  the  Bay  of 
Smyrna  and  in  the  Caystrian  plain,  from 
which  points  of  vantage  they  held  direct 
relations  with  the  immigrant  Greeks  them- 
selves. It  seems,  therefore,  certain  that  at 
some  time  before  800  B.C.  nearly  all  the  western 


96  THE   ANCIENT  EAST 

half  of  the  peninsula  owed  allegiance  more 
or  less  complete  to  the  power  on  the  Sangarius, 
and  that  even  the  Heraclid  kings  of  Lydia 
were  not  independent  of  it. 

If  Phrygia  was  powerful  enough  in  the 
ninth  century  to  hold  the  west  Anatolian 
lands  in  fee,  did  it  also  dominate  enough  of 
the  eastern  peninsula  to  be  ranked  the  imperial 
heir  of  the  Cappadocian  Hatti  ?  The  answer 
to  this  question  (if  any  at  all  can  be  returned 
on  very  slight  evidence)  will  depend  on  the 
view  taken  about  the  possible  identity  of  the 
Phrygian  power  with  that  obscure  but  real 
power  of  the  Mushki,  of  which  we  have  already 
heard.  The  identity  in  question  is  so  gener- 
ally accepted  nowadays  that  it  has  become 
a  commonplace  of  historians  to  speak  of 
the  "  Mushki-Phrygians."  Very  possibly  they 
are  right.  But,  by  way  of  caution,  it  must 
be  remarked  that  the  identification  de- 
pends ultimately  on  another,  namely,  that 
of  Mita,  King  of  the  Mushki,  against  whom 
Ashurbanipal  would  fight  more  than  a  century 
later,  with  Midas,  last  King  of  Phrygia,  who 
is  mentioned  by  Herodotus  and  celebrated  in 
Greek  myth.     To  assume  this  identity  is  very 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  97 

attractive.  Mita  of  Mushki  and  Midas  of 
Phrygia  coincide  well  enough  in  date;  both 
ruled  in  Asia  Minor;  both  were  apparently 
leading  powers  there ;  both  fought  with  the 
Gimirrai  or  Cimmerians.  But  there  are  also 
certain  difficulties  of  which  too  little  account 
has  perhaps  been  taken.  While  Mita  seems  to 
have  been  a  common  name  in  Asia  as  far  inland 
as  Mesopotamia  at  a  much  earlier  period  than 
this,  the  name  Midas,  on  the  other  hand, 
came  much  later  into  Phrygia  from  the  west, 
if  there  is  anything  in  the  Greek  tradition 
that  the  Phryges  or  Briges  had  immigrated 
from  south-east  Europe.  And  supported  as 
this  tradition  is  not  only  by  the  occurrence 
of  similar  names  and  similar  folk-tales  in 
Macedonia  and  in  Phrygia,  but  also  by  the 
western  appearance  of  the  later  Phrygian 
art  and  script,  we  can  hardly  refuse  it  credit. 
Accordingly,  if  we  find  the  origin  of  the 
Phrygians  in  the  Macedonian  Briges,  we  must 
allow  that  Midas,  as  a  Phrygian  name,  came 
from  Europe  very  much  later  than  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  kings  called  Mita  in  Asia,  and  we 
are  compelled  to  doubt  whether  the  latter 
name  is  necessarily  the  same  as  Midas.     When 


98  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

allusions  to  the  Mushki  in  Assyrian  records  give 
any  indication  of  their  local  habitat,  it  lies 
in  the  east,  not  the  west,  of  the  central 
Anatolian  plain — nearly,  in  fact,  where  the 
Moschi  lived  in  later  historical  times.  The 
following  points,  therefore,  must  be  left  open 
at  present :  (1)  whether  the  Mushki  ever 
settled  in  Phrygia  at  all ;  (2)  whether,  if  they 
did,  the  Phrygian  kings  who  bore  the  names 
Gordius  and  Midas  can  ever  have  been  Mush- 
kite  or  have  commanded  Mushkite  allegiance ; 
(3)  whether  the  kings  called  Mita  in  records 
of  Sargon  and  Ashurbanipal  were  not  lords 
rather  of  the  eastern  Mushki  than  of  Phrygia. 
It  cannot  be  assumed,  on  present  evidence  at 
any  rate  (though  it  is  not  improbable),  that 
Phrygian  kings  ruled  the  Mushki  of  Cappa- 
docia,  and  in  virtue  of  that  rule  had  an 
empire  almost  commensurate  with  the  lost 
sway  of  the  Hatti. 

Nevertheless  theirs  was  a  strong  power, 
the  strongest  in  Anatolia,  and  the  fame  of 
its  wealth  and  its  walled  towns  dazzled 
and  awed  the  Greek  communities,  which  were 
thickly  planted  by  now  on  the  western  and 
south-western    coasts.     Some    of    these    had 


THE   EAST   IN   800   B.C.  99 

passed  through  the  trials  of  infancy  and  were 
grown  to  civic  estate^  having  estabhshed 
wide  trade  relations  both  by  land  and  sea. 
In  the  coming  century  Cyme  of  ^olis  would 
give  a  wife  to  a  Phrygian  king.  Ephesus 
seems  to  have  become  already  an  important 
social  as  well  as  religious  centre.  The 
objects  of  art  found  in  1905  on  the  floor  of  the 
earliest  temple  of  Artemis  in  the  plain  (there 
was  an  earlier  one  in  the  hills)  must  be  dated 
— some  of  them — not  later  than  700,  and  their 
design  and  workmanship  bear  witness  to 
flourishing  arts  and  crafts  long  established  in 
the  locality.  Miletus,  too,  was  certainly  an 
adult  centre  of  Hellenism  and  about  to  become 
a  mother  of  new  cities,  if  she  had  not  already 
become  so.  But,  so  early  as  this  year  800, 
we  know  little  about  the  Asiatic  Greek  cities 
beyond  the  fact  of  their  existence;  and  it 
will  be  wiser  to  let  them  grow  for  another 
two  centuries  and  to  speak  of  them  more 
at  length  when  they  have  become  a  potent 
factor  in  West  Asian  society.  When  we  ring 
up  the  curtain  again  after  two  hundred  years, 
it  will  be  found  that  the  light  shed  on  the 
eastern  scene  has  brightened;    for  not  only 


100  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

will  contemporary  records  have  increased  in 
volume  and  clarity,  but  we  shall  be  able  to 
use  the  lamp  of  literary  history  fed  by  tradi- 
tions, which  had  not  had  to  survive  the  lapse 
of  more  than  a  few  generations. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   EAST   IN    600    B.C. 

When  we  look  at  the  East  again  in  600  b.c. 

after  two   centuries  of   war  and  tumultuous 

movements  we  perceive  that  almost  all   its 

lands  have  found  fresh  masters.    The  political 

changes    are    tremendous.      Cataclysm     has 

followed  hard  on  cataclysm.     The  Phrygian 

dynasty  has  gone  down  in  massacre  and  rapine, 

and  from  another  seat  of  power  its  former  client 

rules  Asia  Minor  in  its  stead.     The  strongholds 

of  the  lesser  Semitic  peoples  have  almost  all 

succumbed,  and  Syria  is  a  well-picked  bone 

snatched  by  one  foreign  dog  from  another. 

The    Assyrian    colossus    which    bestrid    the 

west  Asiatic  world  has  failed  and  collapsed, 

and  the  Medes  and  the  Chaldaeans — ^these  two 

clouds  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand  which 

had  lain  on  Assyria's  horizon — fill   her  seat 

and  her  room.     As  we  look  back  on  it  now, 

the  political  revolution  is  complete;  but  had 
101 


102  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

we  lived  in  the  year  600  at  Asshur  or  Damascus 
or  Tyre  or  Tarsus,  it  might  have  impressed  us 
less.  A  new  master  in  the  East  did  not  and 
does  not  always  mean  either  a  new  earth  or 
a  new  heaven. 

Let  us  see  to  how  much  the  change  really 
amounted.  The  Assyrian  Empire  was  no 
more.  This  is  a  momentous  fact,  not  to  be 
esteemed  lightly.  The  final  catastrophe  has 
happened  only  six  years  before  our  date; 
but  the  power  of  Assyria  had  been  going 
downhill  for  nearly  half  a  century,  and  it 
is  clear,  from  the  freedom  with  which  other 
powers  were  able  to  move  about  the  area  of 
her  empire  some  time  before  the  end,  that 
the  East  had  been  free  of  her  interference  for 
years.  Indeed,  so  near  and  vital  a  centre  of 
Assyrian  nationality  as  Calah,  the  old  capital 
of  the  Middle  Empire,  had  been  taken  and 
sacked,  ere  he  who  was  to  be  the  last  "  Great 
King  "  of  the  northern  Semites  ascended  his 
throne. 

§  1.  The  New  Assyrian  Kingdom 

For  the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years 
Assyrian  history — sl  record  of  black  oppres- 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  103 

sion  abroad  and  blacker  intrigue  at  home — 
has  recalled  the  rapid  gathering  and  slower 
passing  away  of  some  great  storm.  A  lull 
marks  the  first  half  of  the  ninth  century. 
Then  almost  without  warning  the  full  fury 
of  the  cloud  bursts  and  rages  for  nearly  a 
hundred  years.  Then  the  gloom  brightens  till 
all  is  over.  The  dynasty  of  Ashurnatsirpal 
and  Shalmaneser  II  slowly  declined  to  its 
inevitable  end.  The  capital  itself  rose  in 
revolt  in  the  year  747,  and  having  done  with 
the  lawful  heirs,  chose  a  successful  soldier, 
who  may  have  been,  for  aught  we  know,  of 
royal  blood,  but  certainly  was  not  in  the 
direct  line.  Tiglath  Pileser — for  he  took  a 
name  from  earlier  monarchs,  possibly  in 
vindication  of  legitimacy — saw  (or  some  wise 
counsellor  told  him)  that  the  militant  empire 
which  he  had  usurped  must  rely  no  longer  on 
annual  levies  of  peasants  from  the  Assyrian 
villages,  which  were  fast  becoming  exhausted ; 
nor  could  it  continue  to  live  on  uncertain 
blackmail  collected  at  uncertain  intervals  now 
beyond  Euphrates,  now  in  Armenia,  now 
again  from  eastern  and  southern  neighbours. 
Such  Bedawi  ideas  and  methods  were  out- 
worn.    The  new  Great  King  tried  new  methods 


104  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

to  express  new  ideas.  A  soldier  by  profession, 
indebted  to  the  sword  for  his  throne,  he 
would  have  a  standing  and  paid  force  always 
at  his  hand,  not  one  which  had  to  be  called 
from  the  plough  spring  by  spring.  The  lands, 
which  used  to  render  blackmail  to  forces  sent 
expressly  all  the  way  from  the  Tigris,  must 
henceforward  be  incorporated  in  the  territorial 
empire  and  pay  their  contributions  to  resident 
governors  and  garrisons .  Moreover,  why  should 
these  same  lands  not  bear  a  part  for  the 
empire  in  both  defence  and  attack  by  sup- 
plying levies  of  their  own  to  the  imperial 
armies  ?  Finally  the  capital,  Calah,  with  its 
traditions  of  the  dead  dynasty,  the  old  regime 
and  the  recent  rebellion,  must  be  replaced  by 
a  new  capital,  even  as  once  on  a  time  Asshur, 
with  its  Babylonian  and  priestly  spirit,  had 
been  replaced.  Accordingly  sites,  a  little 
higher  up  the  Tigris  and  more  centrally 
situated  in  relation  to  both  the  homeland 
and  the  main  roads  from  west  and  east, 
must  be  promoted  to  be  capitals.  But  in 
the  event  it  was  not  till  after  the  reign  of 
Sargon  closed  that  Nineveh  was  made  the 
definitive  seat  of  the  last  Assyrian  kings. 
Organized  and  strengthened  during  Tiglath 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  105 

Pileser's  reign  of  eighteen  years,  this  new 
imperial  machine,  with  its  standing  profes- 
sional army,  its  myriad  levies  drawn  from  all 
fighting  races  within  its  territory,  its  large 
and  secure  revenues  and  its  bureaucracy 
keeping  the  provinces  in  constant  relation  to 
the  centre,  became  the  most  tremendous 
power  of  offence  which  the  world  had  seen. 
So  soon  as  Assyria  was  made  conscious  of 
her  new  vigour  by  the  ease  with  which  the 
Urartu  raiders,  who  had  long  been  encroaching 
on  Mesopotamia,  and  even  on  Syria,  were 
driven  back  across  the  Nairi  lands  and  penned 
into  their  central  fastnesses  of  Van;  by  the 
ease,  too,  with  which  Babylonia  was  humbled 
and  occupied  again,  and  the  Phoenician  ports 
and  the  city  of  Damascus,  impregnable  there- 
tofore, were  taken  and  held  to  tribute — she 
began  to  dream  of  world  empire,  the  first 
society  in  history  to  conceive  this  unattain- 
able ideal.  Certain  influences  and  events,  how- 
ever, would  defer  awhile  any  attempt  to  realize 
the  dream.  Changes  of  dynasty  took  place, 
thanks  partly  to  reactionary  forces  at  home 
and  more  to  the  praetorian  basis  on  which 
the  kingdom  now  reposed,  and  only  one  of 
his  house  succeeded  Tiglath  Pileser.     But  the 


106  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

set-back  was  of  brief  duration.  In  the  year 
722  another  victorious  general  thrust  himself 
on  to  the  throne  and,  under  the  famous  name 
of  Sargon,  set  forth  to  extend  the  bounds  of 
the  empire  towards  Media  on  the  east,  and 
over  Cilicia  into  Tabal  on  the  west,  until  he 
came  into  collision  with  King  Mita  of  the 
Mushki  and  held  him  to  tribute. 

§  2.  The  Empire  of  Sargon 

Though  at  least  one  large  province  had 
still  to  be  added  to  the  Assyrian  Empire, 
Sargon's  reign  may  be  considered  the  period 
of  its  greatest  strength.  He  handed  on  to 
Sennacherib  no  conquests  which  could  not 
have  been  made  good,  and  the  widest  extent 
of  territory  which  the  central  power  was 
adequate  to  hold.  We  may  pause,  then,  just 
before  Sargon's  death  in  705,  to  see  what  the 
area  of  that  territory  actually  was. 

Its  boundaries  cannot  be  stated,  of  course, 
with  any  approach  to  the  precision  of  a 
modern  political  geographer.  Occupied  terri- 
tories faded  imperceptibly  into  spheres  of 
influence  and  these  again  into  lands  habitually, 
or  even  only  occasionally,  raided.    In  some 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  107 

quarters,  especially  from  north-east  round  to 
north-west,  our  present  understanding  of  the 
terms  of  ancient  geography,  used  by  Semitic 
scribes,  is  very  imperfect,  and,  when  an 
Assyrian  king  has  told  us  carefully  what 
lands,  towns,  mountains  and  rivers  his  army 
visited,  it  does  not  follow  that  we  can  identify 
them  with  any  exactness.  Nor  should  the 
royal  records  be  taken  quite  at  their  face 
value.  Some  discount  has  to  be  allowed 
(but  how  much  it  is  next  to  impossible  to 
say)  on  reports,  which  often  ascribe  all  the 
actions  of  a  campaign  not  shared  in  by  the 
King  in  person  (as  in  certain  instances  can 
be  proved)  to  his  sole  prowess,  and  grandilo- 
quently enumerate  twoscore  princedoms  and 
kingdoms  which  were  traversed  and  subdued  in 
the  course  of  one  summer  campaign  in  very 
difficult  country.  The  illusion  of  immense 
achievement,  which  it  was  intended  thus  to 
create,  has  often  imposed  itself  on  modern 
critics,  and  Tiglath  Pileser  and  Sargon  are 
credited  with  having  marched  to  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Caspian,  conquering  or 
holding  to  ransom  great  provinces,  when  their 
forces  were  probably  doing  no  more  than 
climbing   from   valley   to    valley   about    the 


108  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

headwaters  of  the  Tigris  affluents,  and  raiding 
chiefs  of  no  greater  territorial  affluence  than 
the  Kurdish  beys  of  Hakkiari. 

East  of  Assyria  proper,  the  territorial  em- 
pire of  Sargon  does  not  seem  to  have  extended 
quite  up  to  the  Zagros  watershed;  but  his 
sphere  of  influence  included  not  only  the  heads 
of  the  Zab  valleys,  but  also  a  region  on  the 
other  side  of  the  mountains,  reaching  as  far 
as  Hamadan  and  south-west  Azerbaijan,  al- 
though certainly  not  the  eastern  or  northern 
districts  of  the  latter  province,  or  Kaswan, 
or  any  part  of  the  Caspian  littoral.  On  the 
north,  the  frontier  of  Assyrian  territorial  empire 
could  be  passed  in  a  very  few  days'  march 
from  Nineveh.  The  shores  of  neither  the 
Urmia  nor  the  Van  Lake  were  ever  regularly 
occupied  by  Assyria,  and,  though  Sargon 
certainly  brought  into  his  sphere  of  influence 
the  kingdom  of  Urartu,  which  surrounded 
the  latter  lake  and  controlled  the  tribes  as 
far  as  the  western  shore  of  the  former,  it  is 
not  proved  that  his  armies  ever  went  round 
the  east  and  north  of  the  Urmia  Lake,  and 
it  is  fairly  clear  that  they  left  the  north- 
western region  of  mountains  between  Bitlis  and 
the  middle  Euphrates  to  its  own  tribesmen. 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  109 

Westwards  and  southwards,  however,  Sar- 
gon's  arm  swept  a  wider  circuit.  He  held  as 
his  own  all  Mesopotamia  up  to  Diarbekr,  and 
beyond  Syria  not  only  eastern  and  central 
Cilicia,  but  also  some  districts  north  of  Taurus, 
namely,  the  low  plain  of  Milid  or  Malatia,  and 
the  southern  part  of  Tabal;  but  probably  his 
hand  reached  no  farther  over  the  plateau 
than  to  a  line  prolonged  from  the  head  of 
the  Tokhma  Su  to  the  neighbourhood  of 
Tyana,  and  returning  thence  to  the  Cilician 
Gates.  Beyond  that  line  began  a  sphere  of 
influence  which  we  cannot  hope  to  define, 
but  may  guess  to  have  extended  over  Cappa- 
docia,  Lycaonia  and  the  southern  part  of 
Phrygia.  Southward,  all  Syria  was  Sargon's, 
most  of  it  by  direct  occupation,  and  the  rest 
in  virtue  of  acknowledged  overlordship  and 
payment  of  tribute.  Even  the  seven  princes 
of  Cyprus  made  such  submission.  One  or  two 
strong  Syrian  towns.  Tyre  and  Jerusalem,  for 
example,  withheld  payment  if  no  Assyrian 
army  was  at  hand ;  but  their  show  of  indepen- 
dence was  maintained  only  on  sufferance.  The 
Philistine  cities,  after  Sargon's  victory  over 
their  forces  and  Egyptian  allies  at  Raphia, 
in  720,  no  longer  defended  their  walls,  and  the 


110  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

Great  King's  sphere  of  influence  stretched  east- 
ward right  across  the  Hamad  and  southward 
over  north  Arabia.  Finally,  Babylonia  was 
all  his  own  even  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  the  rich 
merchants  supporting  him  firmly  in  the 
interests  of  their  caravan  trade,  however  the 
priests  and  the  peasantry  might  murmur.  But 
Elam,  whose  king  and  people  had  carried 
serious  trouble  into  Assyria  itself  early  in 
the  reign,  is  hardly  to  be  reckoned  to  Sargon 
even  as  a  sphere  of  influence.  The  marshes 
of  its  south-west,  the  tropical  plains  of  the 
centre  and  the  mountains  on  the  east,  made 
it  a  difficult  land  for  the  northern  Semites  to 
conquer  and  hold.  Sargon  had  been  wise 
enough  to  let  it  be.  Neither  so  prudent 
nor  so  fortunate  would  be  his  son  and 
successors. 

§  3.  The  Conquest  of  Egypt 

Such  was  the  empire  inherited  by  Sargon's 
son,  Sennacherib.  Not  content,  he  would 
go  farther  afield  to  make  a  conquest  which 
has  never  remained  long  in  the  hands  of  an 
Asiatic  power.  It  was  not  only  lust  of  loot, 
however,  which  now  urged  Assyria  towards 


THE  EAST   IN   600   B.C.  Ill 

Egypt.     The    Great   Kings   had   long   found 
their  influence  counteracted  in  southern  Syria 
by  that  of   the  Pharaohs.     Princes  of   both 
Hebrew   states,    of   the   Phoenician   and   the 
PhiHstine  cities  and  even  of  Damascus,  had 
all  relied  at  one  time  or  another  on  Egypt, 
and   behind   their   combinations   for   defence 
and  their  individual  revolts  Assyria  had  felt 
the  power  on  the  Nile.     The  latter  generally 
did  no  more  in  the  event  to  save  its  friends 
than  it  had  done  for  Israel  when  Shalmaneser 
IV  beleaguered,  and  Sargon  took  and  garri- 
soned, Samaria ;  but  even  ignorant  hopes  and 
empty  promises  of  help  cause  constant  unrest. 
Therefore  Sennacherib,  after  drastic  chastise- 
ment of  the  southern  states  in  701  (both  Tyre 
and   Jerusalem,   however,   kept   him   outside 
their  walls),  and  a  long  tussle  with  Chaldsean 
Babylon,  was  impelled  to  set  out  in  the  last 
year,  or  last  but  one,  of  his  reign  for  Egypt. 
In  southern  Palestine  he  was  as  successful  as 
before,  but,  thereafter,  some  signal   disaster 
befell  him.     Probably  an  epidemic  pestilence 
overtook  liis  army  when  not  far  across  the 
frontier,  and  he  returned  to  Assyria  only  to 
be  murdered. 

He  bequeathed  the  venture  to  the  son  who, 


112  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

after  defeating  his  parricide  brothers,  secured 
his  throne  and  reigned  eleven  years  under  a 
name  which  it  has  been  agreed  to  write 
Esarhaddon.  So  soon  as  movements  in 
Urartu  and  south-western  Asia  Minor  had  been 
suppressed,  and,  more  important,  Babylon, 
which  his  father  had  dishonoured,  was  ap- 
peased, Esarhaddon  took  up  the  incomplete 
conquest.  Egypt,  then  in  the  hands  of  an 
alien  dynasty  from  the  Upper  Nile  and  divided 
against  itself,  gave  him  little  trouble  at  first. 
In  his  second  expedition  (670)  he  reached 
Memphis  itself,  carried  it  by  assault,  and 
drove  the  Cushite  Tirhakah  past  Thebes 
to  the  Cataracts.  The  Assyrian  proclaimed 
Egypt  his  territory  and  spread  the  net  of 
Ninevite  bureaucracy  over  it  as  far  south 
as  the  Thebaid;  but  neither  he  nor  his  suc- 
cessors cared  to  assume  the  style  and  titles 
of  the  Pharaohs,  as  Persians  and  Greeks, 
wiser  in  their  generations,  would  do  later 
on.  Presently  trouble  at  home,  excited  by 
a  son  rebelling  after  the  immemorial  practice 
of  the  east,  recalled  Esarhaddon  to  Assyria; 
Tirhakah  moved  up  again  from  the  south ; 
the  Great  King  returned  to  meet  him  and 
died  on  the  march. 


Plate  4 


113 


114  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

But  Memphis  was  reoccupied  by  Esarhad- 
don's  successor,  and  since  the  latter  took 
and  ruined  Thebes  also,  and,  after  Tirhakah's 
death,  drove  the  Cushites  right  out  of  Egypt, 
the  doubtful  credit  of  spreading  the  territorial 
empire  of  Assyria  to  the  widest  limits  it  ever 
reached  falls  to  Ashurbanipal.  Even  Tyre 
succumbed  at  last,  and  he  stretched  his 
sphere  of 'influence  over  Asia  Minor  to  Lydia. 
First  of  Assyrian  kings  he  could  claim  Elam 
with  its  capital  Susa  as  his  own  (after  647), 
and  in  the  east  he  professed  overlordship 
over  all  Media.  Mesopotamian  arts  and 
letters  now  reached  the  highest  point  at 
which  they  had  stood  since  Hammurabi's 
days,  and  the  fame  of  the  wealth  and  luxury 
of  "  Sardanapal "  went  out  even  into  the 
Greek  lands.  About  660  B.C.  Assyria  seemed 
in  a  fair  way  to  be  mistress  of  the  desirable 
earth. 

§  4.  Decline  and  Fall  of  Assyria 

Strong  as  it  seemed  in  the  7th  century,  the 
Assyrian  Empire  was,  however,  rotten  at  the 
core.  In  ridding  itself  of  some  weaknesses  it 
had  created  others.     The  later  Great  Kings 


THE  EAST   IN   600   B.C.  115 

of  Nineveh,  raised  to  power  and  maintained 
by  the  spears  of  paid  praetorians,  found  less 
support  even  than  the  old  dynasty  of  Calah 
had  found,  in  popular  religious  sentiment, 
which  (as  usual  in  the  East)  was  the  ultimate 
basis  of  Assyrian  nationality ;  nor,  under  the 
circumstances,  could  they  derive  much  strength 
from  tribal  feeling,  which  sometimes  survives 
the  religious  basis.  Throughout  the  history  of 
the  New  Kingdom  we  can  detect  the  influence 
of  a  strong  opposition  centred  at  Asshur. 
There  the  last  monarch  of  the  Middle  Kingdom 
had  fixed  his  dwelling  under  the  wing  of  the 
priests ;  there  the  new  dynasty  had  dethroned 
him  as  the  consummation  of  an  anti-sacerdotal 
rising  of  nobles  and  of  peasant  soldiery. 
Sargon  seems  to  have  owed  his  elevation 
two  generations  later  to  revenge  taken  for 
this  victory  by  the  city  folk;  but  Sargon's 
son,  Sennacherib,  in  his  turn,  found  priestly 
domination  intolerable,  and,  in  an  effort  to 
crush  it  for  ever,  wrecked  Babylon  and 
terrorized  the  central  home  of  Semitic  cult, 
the  great  sacerdotal  establishment  of  Bel- 
Marduk.  After  his  father's  murder,  Esar- 
haddon  veered  back  to  the  priests,  and  did 
§10  much  to  court  religious  support,  that  the 


116  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

military  party  incited  Ashurbanipal  to  rebellion 
and  compelled  his  father  to  associate  the  son 
in  the  royal  power  before  leaving  Assyria  for 
the  last  time  to  die  (or  be  killed)  on  the  way 
to  Egypt.  Thus  the  whole  record  of  dynastic 
succession  in  the  New  Kingdom  has  been 
typically  Oriental,  anticipating,  at  every 
change  of  monarch,  the  history  of  Islamic 
Empires.  There  is  no  trace  of  unanimous 
national  sentiment  for  the  Great  King.  One 
occupant  of  the  throne  after  another  gains 
power  by  grace  of  a  party  and  holds  it  by 
mercenary  swords. 

Another  imperial  weakness  was  even  more 
fatal.  So  far  as  can  be  learned  from  Assyria's 
own  records  and  those  of  others,  she  lived  on 
her  territorial  empire  without  recognizing  the 
least  obligation  to  render  anything  to  her 
provinces  for  what  they  gave — not  even  to 
render  what  Rome  gave  at  her  worst,  namely, 
peace.  She  regarded  them  as  existing  simply 
to^ndow  her  with  money  and  men.  When 
she  desired  to  garrison  or  to  reduce  to  im- 
potence any  conquered  district,  the  population 
of  some  other  conquered  district  would  be 
deported  thither,  while  the  new  subjects 
took    the    vacant     place.      What    happened 


THE  EAST   IN   600   B.C.  117 

when  Sargon  captured  Samaria  happened 
often  elsewhere  (Ashurbanipal,  for  example, 
made  Thebes  and  Elam  exchange  inhabitants), 
for  this  was  the  only  method  of  assimilating 
alien  populations  ever  conceived  by  Assyria. 
When  she  attempted  to  use  natives  to  govern 
natives  the  result  was  such  disaster  as  followed 
Ashurbanipal's  appointment  of  Psammetichus, 
son  of  Necho,  to  govern  Memphis  and  the 
Western  Delta. 

Rotten  within,  hated  and  coveted  by 
vigorous  and  warlike  races  on  the  east,  the 
north  and  the  south,  Assyria  was  moving 
steadily  towards  her  catastrophe  amid  all  the 
glory  of  "  Sardanapal."  The  pace  quickened 
when  he  was  gone.  A  danger,  which  had 
lain  long  below  the  eastern  horizon,  was  now 
come  up  into  the  Assyrian  field  of  vision. 
Since  Sargon' s  triumphant  raids,  the  Great 
King's  writ  had  run  gradually  less  and  less 
far  into  Media;  and  by  his  retaliatory  in- 
vasions of  Elam,  which  Sennacherib  had 
provoked,  Ashurbanipal  not  only  exhausted 
his  military  resources,  but  weakened  a  power 
which  had  served  to  check  more  dangerous 
foes. 

We    have    seen    that    the    "  Mede  '    was 


118  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

probably  a  blend  of  Scythian  and  Iranian, 
the  latter  element  supplying  the  ruling  and 
priestly  classes.  The  Scythian  element,  it 
seems,  had  been  receiving  considerable  rein- 
forcement. Some  obscure  cause,  disturbing  the 
northern  steppes,  forced  its  warlike  shepherds 
to  move  southward  in  the  mass.  A  large 
body,  under  the  name  Gimirrai  or  Cim- 
merians, descended  on  Asia  Minor  in  the 
seventh  century  and  swept  it  to  the  western 
edge  of  the  plateau  and  beyond;  others 
pressed  into  central  and  eastern  Armetiia, 
and,  by  weakening  the  Vannic  king,  enabled 
Ashurbanipal  to  announce  the  humiliation 
of  Urartu ;  others  again  ranged  behind  Zagros 
and  began  to  break  through  to  the  Assyrian 
valleys.  Even  while  Ashurbanipal  was  still  on 
the  throne  some  of  these  last  had  ventured 
very  far  into  his  realm;  for  in  the  year  of 
his  death  a  band  of  Scythians  appeared  in 
Syria  and  raided  southwards  even  to  the 
frontier  of  Egypt.  It  was  this  raid  which 
virtually  ended  the  Assyrian  control  of  Syria 
and  enabled  Josiah  of  Jerusalem  and  others 
to  reassert  independence. 

The  death  of  Ashurbanipal  coincided  also 
with   the    end  of   direct   Assyrian    rule  over 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  119 

Babylon.  After  the  death  of  a  rebelHous  brother 
and  viceroy  in  648,  the  Great  King  himself 
assumed  the  Babylonian  crown  and  ruled  the 
sacred  city  under  a  Babylonian  name.  But 
there  had  long  been  Chaldaean  principalities  in 
existence,  very  imperfectly  incorporated  in  the 
Assyrian  Empire,  and  these,  inspiring  revolts 
from  time  to  time,  had  already  succeeded  in 
placing  more  than  one  dynast  on  the  throne 
of  Babylon.  As  soon  as  "  Sardanapal  "  was 
no  more  and  the  Scythians  began  to  overrun 
Assyria,  one  of  these  principalities  (it  is  not 
known  which)  came  to  the  front  and  secured 
the  southern  crown  for  its  prince  Nabu-aplu- 
utsur,  or,  as  the  Greeks  wrote  the  name, 
Nabopolassar.  This  Chaldaean  hastened  to 
strengthen  himself  by  marrying  his  son, 
Nebuchadnezzar,  to  a  Median  princess,  and 
threw  off  the  last  pretence  of  submission  to 
Assyrian  suzerainty.  He  had  made  himself 
master  of  southern  Mesopotamia  and  the 
Euphrates  Valley  trade-route  by  the  year  609. 
At  the  opening  of  the  last  decade  of  the  cen- 
tury, therefore,  we  have  this  state  of  things. 
Scythians  and  Medes  are  holding  most  of 
eastern  and  central  Assyria ;  Chaldaeans  hold 
south  Mesopotamia ;  while  Syria,  isolated  from 


120  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

the  old  centre  of  empire,  is  anyone's  to  take 
and  keep.  A  claimant  appears  immediately 
in  the  person  of  the  Egyptian  Necho,  sprung 
from  the  loins  of  that  Psammetichus  who 
had  won  the  Nile  country  back  from  Assyria. 
Pharaoh  entered  Syria  probably  in  609,  broke 
easily  through  the  barrier  which  Josiah  of 
Jerusalem,  greatly  daring  in  this  day  of 
Assyrian  weakness,  threw  across  his  path  at 
Megiddo,  went  on  to  the  north  and  proceeded 
to  deal  as  he  willed  with  the  west  of  the 
Assjo'ian  empire  for  four  or  five  years.  The 
destiny  of  Nineveh  was  all  but  fulfilled.  With 
almost  everything  lost  outside  her  walls,  she 
held  out  against  the  Scythian  assaults  till 
606,  and  then  fell  to  the  Mede  Uvakhshatra, 
known  to  the  Greeks  as  Kyaxares.  The  fallen 
capital  of  West  Asia  was  devastated  by  the 
conquerors  to  such  effect  that  it  never  re- 
covered, and  its  life  passed  away  for  ever 
across  the  Tigris,  to  the  site  on  which  Mosul 
stands  at  the  present  day. 

§  5.  The  Babylonians  and  the  Medes 

Six    years    later, — in    600    B.C. — ^this    was 
the  position  of  that  part  of  the  East  which 


THE   EAST   IN  600   B.C.  121 

had  been  the  Assyrian  Empire.  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, the  Chaldaean  king  of  Babylon, 
who  had  succeeded  his  father  about  605, 
held  the  greater  share  of  it  to  obedience  and 
tribute,  but  not,  apparently,  by  means  of  any 
such  centralized  bureaucratic  organization  as 
the  Assyrians  had  established.  Just  before 
his  father's  death  he  had  beaten  the  Egyptians 
in  a  pitched  battle  under  the  walls  of  Car- 
chemish,  and  subsequently  had  pursued  them 
south  through  Syria,  and  perhaps  across  the 
frontier,  before  being  recalled  to  take  up  his 
succession.  He  had  now,  therefore,  no  rival 
or  active  competitor  in  Syria,  and  this  part 
of  the  lost  empire  of  Assyria  seems  to  have 
enjoyed  a  rare  interval  of  peace  under 
native  client  princes  who  ruled  more  or  less 
on  Assyrian  lines.  The  only  fenced  places 
which  made  any  show  of  defiance  were  Tyre 
and  Jerusalem,  which  both  relied  on  Egypt. 
The  first  would  outlast  an  intermittent  siege 
of  thirteen  years;  but  the  other,  with  far 
less  resources,  was  soon  to  pay  full  price  for 
having  leaned  too  long  on  the  "  staff  of  a 
broken  reed." 

About  the  east  and  north  a  different  story 
would  certainly  have  to  be  told,  if  we  could  tell 


122  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

it  in  full.  But  though  Greek  traditions  conu 
to  our  aid,  they  have  much  less  to  sa} 
about  these  remote  regions  than  the  inscribed 
annals  of  that  empire,  which  had  just  comr 
to  its  end,  have  had  hitherto  :  and  unfortu 
nately  the  Median  inheritors  of  Assyria  have 
left  no  epigraphic  records  of  their  own — at 
least  none  have  been  found.  If,  as  seems 
probable,  the  main  element  of  Kyaxares'  war 
strength  was  Scythian,  we  can  hardly  expect 
to  find  records  either  of  his  conquest  or  the 
subsequent  career  of  the  Medes,  even  though 
Ecbatana  should  be  laid  bare  below  the  site 
of  modern  Hamadan ;  for  the  predatory  Scyth, 
like  the  mediaeval  Mongol,  halted  too  short 
a  time  to  desire  to  carve  stones,  and  probably 
lacked  skill  to  inscribe  them.  To  complete 
our  discomfiture,  the  only  other  possible 
source  of  light,  the  Babylonian  annals,  sheds 
none  henceforward  on  the  north  country  and 
very  little  on  any  country.  Nebuchadnezzar 
— ^so  far  as  his  records  have  been  found  and 
read — did  not  adopt  the  Assyrian  custom  of 
enumerating  first  and  foremost  his  expeditions 
and  his  battles;  and  were  it  not  for  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  we  should  hardly  know 
that    his    armies    ever    left    Babylonia,    the 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  123 

rebuilding  and  redecoration  of  whose  cities 
and  shrines  appear  to  have  constituted  his 
chief  concern.  True,  that  in  such  silence 
about  warlike  operations,  he  follows  the 
precedent  of  previous  Babylonian  kings; 
but  probably  that  precedent  arose  from  the 
fact  that  for  a  long  time  past  Babylon  had 
been  more  or  less  continuously  a  client 
state. 

We  must,  therefore,  proceed  by  inference. 
There  are  two  or  three  recorded  events  earlier 
and  later  than  our  date,  which  are  of  ser- 
vice. First,  we  learn  from  Babylonian  annals 
that  Kyaxares,  besides  overrunning  all  Assyria 
and  the  northern  part  of  Babylonia  after  the 
fall  of  Nineveh,  took  and  pillaged  Harran 
and  its  temple  in  north-west  Mesopotamia. 
Now,  from  other  records  of  Nabonidus,  fourth 
in  succession  to  Nebuchadnezzar,  we  shall 
learn  further  that  this  temple  did  not  come 
into  Babylonian  hands  till  the  middle  of  the 
following  century.  The  reasonable  inference 
is  that  it  had  remained  since  606  B.C.  in 
the  power  of  the  Medes,  and  that  northern 
Mesopotamia,  as  well  as'  Assyria,  formed  part 
of  a  loose-knit  Median  "  Empire  "  for  a  full 
half  century  before  552  B.C. 


124  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

Secondly,  Herodotus  bears  witness  to  a 
certain  event  which  occurred  about  the  year 
585,  in  a  region  near  enough  to  his  own 
country  for  the  fact  to  be  sufficiently  well 
known  to  him.  He  states  that,  after  an 
expedition  into  Cappadocia  and  a  war  with 
Lydia,  the  Medes  obtained,  under  a  treaty 
with  the  latter  which  the  king  of  Babylon 
and  the  prince  of  Cilicia  promoted,  the  Halys 
river  as  a  "  scientific  frontier  "  on  the  north- 
west. This  statement  leaves  us  in  no  doubt 
that  previously  the  power  of  Ecbatana  had 
been  spread  through  Armenia  into  the  old 
Hatti  country  of  Cappadocia,  as  well  as  over 
all  the  north  of  Mesopotamia,  in  the  widest 
sense  of  this  vague  term. 

Something  more,  perhaps,  may  be  inferred 
legitimately  from  this  same  passage  of  Hero- 
dotus. The  mediation  of  the  two  kings,  so 
unexpectedly  coupled,  must  surely  mean  that 
each  stood  to  one  of  the  two  belligerents  as 
friend  and  ally.  If  so  (since  a  Babylonian 
king  can  hardly  have  held  such  a  relation  to 
distant  Lydia,  while  the  other  prince  might 
well  have  been  its  friend),  Cilicia  was  probably 
outside  the  Median  "  sphere  of  influence," 
while  Babylon  fell  within  it;  and  Nebuchad- 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  125 

nezzar — for  he  it  must  have  been,  when  the 
date  is  considered,  though  Herodotus  calls 
him  by  a  name,  Labynetus,  otherwise  un- 
known— was. not  a  wholly  independent  ruler, 
though  ruler  doubtless  of  the  first  and  greatest 
of  the  client  states  of  Media.  Perhaps  that 
is  why  he  has  told  us  so  little  of  expeditions 
and  battles,  and  confined  his  records  so 
narrowly  to  domestic  events.  If  his  armies 
marched  only  to  do  the  bidding  of  an  alien 
kinsman-in-law,  he  can  have  felt  but  a  tepid 
pride  in  their  achievements. 

In  600  B.C.,  then,  we  must  picture  a  Median 
"  Empire,"  probably  of  the  raiding  type, 
centred  in  the  west  of  modern  Persia  and 
stretching  westward  over  all  Armenia  (where 
the  Vannic  kingdom  had  ceased  to  be),  and 
southward  to  an  ill -defined  point  in  Meso- 
potamia. Beyond  this  point  south  and  west 
extended  a  Median  sphere  of  influence  which 
included  Babylonia  and  all  that  obeyed 
Nebuchadnezzar  even  to  the  border  of  Elam 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  border  of  Egypt  on 
the  other.  Since  the  heart  of  this  "  Empire  " 
lay  in  the  north,  its  main  activities  took  place 
there  too,  and  probably  the  discretion  of  the 
Babylonian  king  was  seldom  interfered  with 


126  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

by  his  Median  suzerain.  In  expanding  their 
power  westward  to  Asia  Minor,  the  Medes 
followed  routes  north  of  Taurus,  not  the 
old  AssjTian  war -road  through  Cilicia.  Of  so 
much  we  can  be  fairly  sure.  Much  else  that 
we  are  told  of  Media  by  Herodotus — his 
marvellous  account  of  Ecbatana  and  scarcely 
less  wonderful  account  of  the  reigning  house 
— ^must  be  passed  by  till  some  confirmation  of 
it  comes  to  light;  and  that,  perhaps,  will 
never  be. 

§  6.  Asia  Minor 

A  good  part  of  the  East,  however,  remains 
which  owed  allegiance  neither  to  Media  nor 
to  Babylon.  It  is,  indeed,  a  considerably  larger 
area  than  was  independent  of  the  Farther 
East  at  the  date  of  our  last  survey.  Asia 
Minor  was  in  all  likelihood  independent  from 
end  to  end,  from  the  ^gean  to  the  Euphrates 
— for  in  600  B.C.  Kyaxares  had  probably  not 
yet  come  through  Urartu — and  from  the 
Black  Sea  to  the  Gulf  of  Issus.  About 
much  of  this  area  we  have  far  more  trust- 
worthy information  now  than  when  we  looked 
at  it  last,   because  it  had  happened  to  fall 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  127 

under  the  eyes  of  the  Greeks  of  the  western 
coastal  cities,  and  to  form  relations  with  them 
of  trade  and  war.  But  about  the  residue, 
which  lay  too  far  eastward  to  concern  the 
Greeks  much,  we  have  less  information  than 
we  had  in  800  B.C.,  owing  to  the  failure  of  the 
Assyrian  imperial  annals. 

The  dominant  fact  in  Asia  Minor  in  600  B.C. 
is  the  existence  of  a  new  imperial  power,  that 
of  Lydia.  Domiciled  in  the  central  west  of 
the  peninsula,  its  writ  ran  eastwards  over 
the  plateau  about  as  far  as  the  former  limits 
of  the  Phrygian  power,  on  whose  ruins  it  had 
arisen.  As  has  been  stated  already,  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  its  "  sphere  of  in- 
fluence," at  any  rate,  included  Cilicia,  and 
the  battle  to  be  fought  on  the  Halys,  fifteen 
years  after  our  present  survey,  will  argue 
that  some  control  of  Cappadocia  also  had 
been  attempted.  Before  we  speak  of  the 
Lydian  kingdom,  however,  and  of  its  rise 
to  its  present  position,  it  will  be  best  to 
dispose  of  that  outlying  state  on  the  south- 
east, probably  an  ally  or  even  client  of 
Lydia,  which,  we  are  told,  was  at  this  time 
one  of  the  "  four  powers  of  Asia."  These 
powers  included  Babylon  also,  and  accord- 


128  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

ingly,  if  our  surmise  that  the  Mede  was  then 
the  overlord  of  Nebuchadnezzar  be  correct, 
this  statement  of  Eusebius,  for  what  it  is 
worth,  does  not  imply  that  Cilicia  had  at- 
tained an  imperial  position.  Doubtless  of 
the  four  "powers,"  she  ranked  lowest. 

§  7.  Cilicia 

It  will  be  remembered  how  much  attention 
a  great  raiding  Emperor  of  the  Middle 
Assyrian  period,  Shalmaneser  II,  had  devoted 
to  this  little  country.  The  conquering  kings 
of  later  dynasties  had  devoted  hardly  less. 
From  Sargon  to  Ashurbanipal  they  or  their 
armies  had  been  there  often,  and  their 
governors  continuously.  Sennacherib  is  said 
to  have  rebuilt  Tarsus  "  in  the  likeness  of 
Babylon,"  and  Ashurbanipal,  who  had  to  con- 
cern himself  with  the  affairs  of  Asia  Minor  more 
than  any  of  his  predecessors,  was  so  intimately 
connected  with  Tarsus  that  a  popular  tradition 
of  later  days  placed  there  the  scene  of  his  death 
and  the  erection  of  his  great  tomb.  And,  in 
fact,  he  may  have  died  there  for  all  that  we 
know  to  the  contrary ;  for  no  Assyrian  record 
tells  us  that  he  did  not.     Unlike  the  rest  of 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  129 

Asia  Minor,  Cilicia  was  saved  by  the  Assyrians 
from  the  ravages  of  the  Cimmerians.  Their 
leader,  Dugdamme,  whom  the  Greeks  called 
Lygdamis,  is  said  to  have  met  his  death 
on  the  frontier  hills  of  Taurus,  which, 
no  doubt,  he  failed  to  pass.  Thus,  when 
Ashurbanipal's  death  and  the  shrinking  of 
Ninevite  power  permitted  distant  vassals  to 
resume  independence,  the  unimpaired  wealth 
of  Cilicia  soon  gained  for  her  considerable 
importance.  The  kings  of  Tarsus  now  ex- 
tended their  power  into  adjoining  lands,  such 
as  Kue  on  the  east  and  Tabal  on  the  north, 
and  probably  over  even  the  holding  of  the 
Kummukh;  for  Herodotus,  writing  a  century 
and  a  half  after  our  date,  makes  the  Euphrates 
a  boundary  of  Cilicia.  He  evidently  under- 
stood that  the  northernmost  part  of  Syria, 
called  by  later  geographers  (but  never  by 
him)  Commagene,  was  then  and  had  long 
been  Cilician  territory.  His  geographical 
ideas,  in  fact,  went  back  to  the  greater  Cilicia 
of  pre -Persian  time,  which  had  been  one  of 
the  "  four  great  powers  of  Asia." 

The  most  interesting  feature  of  Cilician 
history,  as  it  is  revealed  very  rarely  and  very 
dimly   in   the   annals   of   the   New   Assyrian 


130  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

Kingdom,  consists  in  its  relation  to  the  earliest 
eastward  veaturing  of  the  Greeks.  The  first 
Assyrian  king  with  whom  these  western  men 
seem  to  have  collided  was  Sargon,  who  late 
in  the  eighth  century,  finding  their  ships  in 
what  he  considered  his  own  waters,  i,  e.  on 
the  coasts  of  Cyprus  and  Cilicia,  boasts  that 
he  "  caught  them  like  fish."  Since  this 
actioai  of  his,  he  adds,  "  gave  rest  to  Kue  and 
Tyre,"  we  may  reasonably  infer  that  the 
"  Ionian  pirates  "  did  not  then  appear  on 
the  shores  of  Phoenicia  and  Cilicia  for  the 
first  time;  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  they 
were  already  a  notorious  danger  in  the  eastern- 
most Levant.  In  the  year  720  we  find  a 
nameless  Greek  of  Cyprus  (or  Ionia)  actually 
ruling  Ashdod.  Sargon's  successor,  Senna- 
cherib, had  serious  trouble  with  the  lonians 
only  a  few  years  later,  as  has  been  learned 
from  the  comparison  of  a  royal  record  of  his, 
only  recently  recovered  and  read,  with  some 
statements  made  probably  in  the  first  place 
by  the  Babylonian  historian,  Berossus,  but 
preserved  to  us  in  a  chronicle  of  much  later 
date,  not  hitherto  much  heeded.  Piecing 
these  scraps  of  information  together,  the 
Assyrian  scholar,    King,  has  inferred  that,  in 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  131 

the  important   campaign   which  a  revolt  of 
Tarsus,  aided  by  the  peoples  of  the  Taurus 
on  the  west  and  north,  compelled  the  generals 
of  Sennacherib  to  wage  in  Cilicia  in  the  year 
698,  lonians  took  a  prominent  part  by  land, 
and  probably  also  by  sea.     Sennacherib  is  said 
(by  a  late  Greek  historian)  to  have  erected 
an  "  Athenian  "  temple  in  Tarsus  after  the 
victory,  which  was  hardly  won;  and  if  this 
means,  as  it  may  well  do,  an  "  Ionic  "  temple, 
it  states  a  by  no  means  incredible  fact,  see- 
ing that  there  had  been  much  local  contact 
between   the  Cilicians   and   the   men   of   the 
west.     Striking  similarities  of  form  and  artistic 
execution  between  the  early  glyptic  and  toreu- 
tic work  of  Ionia  and  Cilicia  respectively  have 
been  mentioned  in  the  last  chapter;  and  it 
need  only  be  added  here,  in  conclusion,  that  if 
Cilicia  had  relations  with  Ionia  as  early  as 
the  opening  of  the  seventh  century — relations 
sufficient  to  lead  to  alliance  in  war  and  to 
modification    of    native    arts — it    is    natural 
enough  that    she   should   be   found   allied   a 
few  years  later  with  Lydia  rather  than  with 
Media. 


132  THE   ANCIENT  EAST 


§  8.  Phrygia 

When  we  last  surveyed  Asia  Minor  as  a 
whole  it  was  in  large  part  under  the  dominance 
of  a  central  power  in  Phrygia.  This  power 
is  now  no  more,  and  its  place  has  been  taken 
by  another,  which  rests  on  a  point  nearer 
to  the  western  coast.  It  is  worth  notice,  in 
passing,  how  Anatolian  dominion  has  moved 
stage  by  stage  from  east  to  west — from 
the  Halys  basin  in  northern  Cappadocia, 
where  its  holders  had  been,  broadly  speak- 
ing, in  the  same  cultural  group  as  the 
Mesopotamian  East,  to  the  middle  basin  of 
the  Sangarius,  where  western  influences  greatly 
modified  the  native  culture  (if  we  may  judge 
by  remains  of  art  and  script).  Now  at  last  it 
has  come  to  the  Hermus  valley,  up  which 
blows  the  breath  of  the  ^gean  Sea.  What- 
ever the  East  might  recover  in  the  future, 
the  Anatolian  peninsula  was  leaning  more  and 
more  on  the  West,  and  the  dominion  of  it 
was  coming  to  depend  on  contact  with  the 
vital  influence  of  Hellenism,  rather  than  on 
connection  with  the  heart  of  west  Asia. 
A  king  Mita  of  the  Mushki  first  appears  in 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  133 

the  annals  of  the  New  Assyrian  Kingdom  as 
opposing  Sargon,  when  the  latter,  early  in  his 
reign,  tried  to  push  his  sphere  of  influence, 
if  not  his  territorial  empire,  beyond  the 
Taurus  to  include  the  principalities  of  Kue 
and  Tabal ;  and  the  same  Mita  appears  to 
have  been  allied  with  Carchemish  in  the 
revolt  which  ended  with  its  siege  and  fuial 
capture  in  717  B.C.  As  has  been  said  in  the 
last  chapter,  it  is  usual  to  identify  this  king 
with  one  of  those  "  Phrygians "  known  to 
the  Greeks  as  Midas — preferably  with  the 
son  of  the  first  Gordius,  whose  wealth  and 
power  have  been  immortalized  in  mythology. 
If  this  identification  is  correct,  we  have  to 
picture  Phrygia  at  the  close  of  the  eighth 
century  as  dominating  almost  all  Asia  Minor, 
whether  by  direct  or  by  indirect  rule;  as 
prepared  to  measure  her  forces  (though 
without  ultimate  success)  against  the  strong- 
est power  in  Asia ;  and  as  claiming  interests 
even  outside  the  peninsula.  Pisiris,  king 
of  Carchemish,  appealed  to  Mita  as  his 
ally,  either  because  the  Mushki  of  Asia  Minor 
sat  in  the  seat  of  his  own  forbears,  the 
Hatti  of  Cappadocia,  or  because  he  was 
himself   of   Mushki   kin.     There   can    be   no 


134  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

doubt  that  the  king  thus  invoked  was  king 
of  Cappadocia.  Whether  he  was  king  also  of 
Phrygia,  i.  e.  really  the  same  as  Midas  son 
of  Gordius,  is,  as  has  been  said  already,  less 
certain.  Mita's  relations  with  Kue,  Tabal 
and  Carchemish  do  not,  in  themselves,  argue 
that  his  seat  of  power  was  anywhere  else 
than  in  the  east  of  Asia  Minor,  where  Moschi 
did  actually  survive  till  much  later  times  : 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  occurrence  of 
inscriptions  in  the  distinctive  script  of 
Phrygia  at  Eyuk,  east  of  the  Halys,  and  at 
Tyana,  south-east  of  the  central  Anatolian 
desert,  argue  that  at  some  time  the  filaments 
of  Phrygian  power  did  stretch  into  Cappa- 
docia and  towards  the  land  of  the  later 
Moschi. 

It  must  also  be  admitted  that  the  splendour 
of  the  surviving  rock  monuments  near  the 
Phrygian  capital  is  consistent  with  its  having 
been  the  centre  of  a  very  considerable  empire, 
and  hardly  consistent  with  its  having  been 
anything  less.  The  greatest  of  these,  the  tomb 
of  a  king  Midas  (son  not  of  Gordius  but  of 
Atys),  has  for  fa9ade  a  cliff  about  a  hundred 
feet  high,  cut  back  to  a  smooth  face  on  which 
an  elaborate  geometric  pattern  has  been  left 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  135 

in  relief.  At  the  foot  is  a  false  door,  while 
above  the  immense  stone  curtain  the  rock 
has  been  carved  into  a  triangular  pediment 
worthy  of  a  Greek  temple  and  engraved  with 
a  long  inscription  in  a  variety  of  the  earliest 
Greek  alphabet.  There  are  many  other  rock- 
tombs  of  smaller  size  but  similar  plan  and 
decoration  in  the  district  round  the  central 
site,  and  others  which  show  reliefs  of  human 
figures  and  of  lions,  the  latter  of  immense 
proportions  on  two  famous  fa9ades.  When 
these  were  carved,  the  Assyrian  art  of  the 
New  Kingdom  was  evidently  known  in 
Phrygia  (probably  in  the  early  seventh 
century),  and  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
those  who  made  such  great  things  under 
Assyrian  influence  can  have  passed  wholly 
unmentioned  by  contemporary  Assyrian 
records.  Therefore,  after  all,  we  shall,  perhaps, 
have  to  admit  that  they  were  those  same 
Mushki  who  followed  leaders  of  the  name  Mita 
to  do  battle  with  the  Great  Kings  of  Nineveh 
from  Sargon  to  Ashurbanipal. 

There  is  no  doubt  how  the  Phrygian  king- 
dom came  by  its  end.  Assyrian  records 
attest  that  the  Gimirrai  or  Cimmerians,  an 
Indo-European     Scythian     folk,    which     has 


136  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

left  its  name  to  Crim  Tartary,  and  the  present 
Crimea,  swept  southward  and  westward  about 
the  middle  of  the  seventh  century,  and  Greek 
records  tell  how  they  took  and  sacked  the 
capital  of  Phrygia  and  put  to  death  or  forced 
to  suicide  the  last  King  Midas. 

§  9.  Lydia 

It  must  have  been  in  the  hour  of  that 
disaster,  or  but  little  before,  that  a  Mermnad 
prince  of  Sardes,  called  Guggu  by  Assyrians 
and  Gyges  by  Greeks,  threw  off  any  allegiance 
he  may  have  owed  to  Phrygia  and  began  to 
exalt  his  house  and  land  of  Lydia.  He  was  the 
founder  of  a  new  dynasty,  having  been  by 
origin,  apparently,  a  noble  of  the  court  who 
came  to  be  elevated  to  the  throne  by  events 
differently  related  but  involving  in  all  the 
accounts  some  intrigue  with  his  predecessor's 
queen.  One  historian,  who  says  that  he  pre- 
vailed by  the  aid  of  Carians,  probably  states  a 
fact;  for  it  was  this  same  Gyges  who  a  few 
years  later  seems  to  have  introduced  Carian 
mercenaries  to  the  notice  of  Psammetichus  of 
Egypt.  Having  met  and  repulsed  the  Cimmer- 
ian horde  without  the  aid  of  Ashurbanipal  of 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  137 

Assyria,  to  whom  he  had  applied  in  vain, 
Gyges  allied  himself  with  the  Egyptian  rebel 
who  had  just  founded  the  Saite  dynasty,  and 
proceeded  to  enlarge  his  boundaries  by  at- 
tacking the  prosperous  Greeks  on  his  western 
hand.  But  he  was  successful  only  against 
Colophon  and  Magnesia  on  the  Maeander, 
inland  places,  and  failed  before  Smyrna  and 
Miletus,  which  could  be  provisioned  by  their 
fleets  and  probably  had  at  their  call  a  larger 
proportion  of  those  warlike  "  Ionian  pirates  " 
who  had  long  been  harrying  the  Levant.  In 
the  course  of  a  long  reign,  which  Herodotus 
(an  inexact  chronologist)  puts  at  thirty-eight 
years,  Gyges  had  time  to  establish  his  power 
and  to  secure  for  his  Lydians  the  control  of  the 
overland  trade ;  and  though  a  fresh  Cimmerian 
horde,  driven  on,  says  Herodotus, by  Scythians 
(perhaps  these  were  not  unconnected  with 
the  Medes  then  moving  westward,  as  we 
know),  came  down  from  the  north,  defeated 
and  killed  him,  sacked  the  unfortified  part 
of  his  capital  and  swept  on  to  plunder  what 
it  could  of  the  land  as  far  as  the  sea  without 
pausing  to  take  fenced  places,  his  son  Ardys, 
who  had  held  out  in  the  citadel  of  Sardes,  and 
made  his  submission  to  Ashurbanipal,   was 


188  THE  ANCIENT    EAST 

soon  able  to  resume  the  offensive  against  the 
Greeks.  After  an  Assyrian  attack  on  the 
Cimmerian  flank  or  rear  had  brought  about 
the  death  of  the  chief  barbarian  leader  in  the 
Cilician  hills,  and  the  dispersal  of  the  storm, 
the  Lydian  marched  down  the  Maeander  again. 
He  captured  Priene,  but  like  his  predecessor 
and  his  successor,  he  failed  to  snatch  the 
most  coveted  prize  of  the  Greek  coast,  the 
wealthy  city  Miletus  at  the  Maeander  mouth. 
Up  to  the  date  of  our  present  survey,  how- 
ever, and  for  half  a  century  yet  to  come,  these 
conquests  of  the  Lydian  kings  in  Ionia  and 
Caria  amounted  to  little  more  than  forays 
for  plunder  and  the  levy  of  blackmail,  like 
the  earlier  Mesopotamian  razzias.  They  might 
result  in  the  taking  and  sacking  of  a  town 
here  and  there,  but  not  in  the  holding  of  it. 
The  Carian  Greek  Herodotus,  born  not  much 
more  than  a  century  later,  tells  us  expressly 
that  up  to  the  time  of  Croesus,  that  is,  to 
his  own  father's  time,  all  the  Greeks  kept 
their  freedom  :  and  even  if  he  means  by  this 
statement,  as  possibly  he  does,  that  pre- 
viously no  Greeks  had  been  subjected  to 
regular  slavery,  it  still  supports  our  point : 
for,  if  we  may  judge  by  Assyrian  practice, 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  139 

the  enslaving  of  vanquished  peoples  began 
only  when  their  land  was  incorporated  in  a 
territorial  empire.  We  hear  nothing  of  Lydian 
governors  in  the  Greek  coastal  cities  and  find 
no  trace  of  a  "  Lydian  period  "  in  the  strata 
of  such  Ionian  and  Carian  sites  as  have  been 
excavated.  So  it  would  appear  that  the 
Lydians  and  the  Greeks  lived  up  to  and  after 
600  B.C.  in  unquiet  contact,  each  people 
holding  its  own  on  the  whole  and  learning 
about  the  other  in  the  only  international 
school  known  to  primitive  men,  the  school 
of  war. 

Herodotus  represents  that  the  Greek  cities 
of  Asia,  according  to  the  popular  belief  of 
his  time,  were  deeply  indebted  to  Lydia  for 
their  civilization.  The  larger  part  of  this  debt 
(if  real)  was  incurred  probably  after  600  B.C. ; 
but  some  constituent  items  of  the  account 
must  have  been  of  older  date — the  coining 
of  money,  for  example.  There  is,  however, 
much  to  be  set  on  the  other  side  of  the  ledger, 
more  than  Herodotus  knew,  and  more  than 
we  can  yet  estimate.  Too  few  monuments 
of  the  arts  of  the  earlier  Lydians  and  too  few 
objects  of  their  daily  use  have  been  found  in 
their  ill- explored  land  for  us  to  say  whether 


140  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

they  owed  most  to  the  West  or  to  the  East. 
From  the  American  excavation  of  Sardes, 
however,  we  have  already  learned  for  certain 
that  their  script  was  of  a  Western  type,  nearer 
akin  to  the  Ionian  than  even  the  Phrygian 
was;  and  since  their  language  contained  a 
great  number  of  Indo-European  words,  the 
Lydians  should  not,  on  the  whole,  be  reckoned 
an  Eastern  people.  Though  the  names  given 
by  Herodotus  to  their  earliest  kings  are 
Mesopotamian  and  may  be  reminiscent  of 
some  political  connection  with  the  Far  East 
at  a  remote  epoch — perhaps  that  of  the 
foreign  relations  of  Ur,  which  seem  to  have 
extended  to  Cappadocia — all  the  later  royal 
and  other  Lydian  names  recorded  are  dis- 
tinctly Anatolian.  At  any  rate  all  connection 
with  Mesopotamia  must  have  long  been  for- 
gotten before  Ashurbanipal's  scribes  could 
mention  the  prayer  of  "  Guggu  King  of 
Luddi  "  as  coming  from  a  people  and  a  land 
of  which  their  master  and  his  forbears  had 
not  so  much  as  heard.  As  the  excavation  of 
Sardes  and  of  other  sites  in  Lj^dia  proceeds, 
we  shall  perhaps  find  that  the  higher  civiliza- 
tion of  the  country  was  a  comparatively  late 
growth,  dating  mainly  from  the  rise  of  the 


THE   EAST   IN    600   B.C.  141 

Mermnads,  and  that  its  products  will  show 
an  influence  of  the  Hellenic  cities  which 
began  not  much  earlier  than  600  b.c,  and 
was  most  potent  in  the  century  succeeding 
that  date. 

We  know  nothing  of  the  extent  of  Lydian 
power  towards  the  east,  unless  the  suggestions 
already  based  on  the  passage  of  Herodotus 
concerning  the  meeting  of  Alyattes  of  Lydia 
with  Kyaxares  the  Mede  on  the  Halys,  some 
years  later  than  the  date  of  our  present 
survey,  are  well  founded.  If  they  are,  then 
Lydia's  sphere  of  influence  may  be  assumed 
to  have  included  Cilicia  on  the  south-east, 
and  its  interests  must  have  been  involved 
in  Cappadocia  on  the  north-east.  It  is  not 
unlikely  that  the  Mermnad  dynasty  inherited 
most  of  what  the  Phrygian  kings  had  held 
before  the  Cimmerian  attack;  and  perhaps 
it  was  due  to  an  oppressive  Lydian  occu- 
pation of  the  plateau  as  far  east  as  the 
Halys  and  the  foot  of  Anti-Taurus,  that 
the  Mushki  came  to  be  represented  in  later 
times  only  by  Moschi  in  western  Armenia, 
and  the  men  of  Tabal  by  the  equally  remote 
and  insignificant  Tibareni. 


142  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

§  10.  The  Greek  Cities 

Of  the  Greek  cities  on  the  Anatolian  coast 
something  has  been  said  already.  The  great 
period  of  the  elder  ones  as  free  and  independent 
communities  falls  between  the  opening  of 
the  eighth  century  and  the  close  of  the 
sixth.  Thus  they  were  in  their  full  bloom 
about  the  year  600.  By  the  foundation  of 
secondary  colonies  (Miletus  alone  is  said  to 
have  founded  sixty  !)  and  the  establishment 
of  trading  posts,  they  had  pushed  Hellenic 
culture  eastwards  round  the  shores  of  the 
peninsula,  to  Pontus  on  the  north  and  to 
Cilicia  on  the  south.  In  the  eyes  of  Herodotus 
this  was  the  happy  age  when  "  all  Hellenes 
were  free  "  as  compared  with  his  own  ex- 
perience of  Persian  overlordship.  Miletus, 
he  tells  us,  was  then  the  greatest  of  the 
cities,  mistress  of  the  sea;  and  certainly 
some  of  the  most  famous  among  her  citizens, 
Anaximander,  Anaximenes,  Hecataeus  and 
Thales,  belong  approximately  to  this  epoch, 
as  do  equally  famous  names  from  other 
Asiatic  Greek  communities,  such  as  Alcaeus 
and  Sappho  of  Lesbos,  Mimnermus  of  Smyrna 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  143 

or  Colophon,  Anacreon  of  Teos,  and  many 
more.  The  fact  is  significant,  because  studies 
and  Hterary  activities  hke  theirs  could  hardly 
have  been  pursued  except  in  highly  civilized, 
free  and  leisured  societies  where  life  and 
wealth  were  secure. 

If,  however,  the  brilliant  culture  of  the 
Asiatic  Greeks  about  the  opening  of  the 
sixth  century  admits  no  shadow  of  doubt, 
singularly  few  material  things,  which  their 
arts  produced,  have  been  recovered  for  us 
to  see  to-day.  Miletus  has  been  excavated 
by  Germans  to  a  very  considerable  extent, 
without  yielding  anything  really  worthy  of 
its  great  period,  or,  indeed,  much  that  can 
be  referred  to  that  period  at  all,  except 
sherds  of  a  fine  painted  ware.  It  looks  as  if 
the  city  at  the  mouth  of  the  greatest  and 
largest  valley,  which  penetrates  Asia  Minor 
from  the  west  coast,  was  too  important  in 
subsequent  ages  and  suffered  chastisements 
too  drastic  and  reconstructions  too  thorough 
for  remains  of  its  earlier  greatness  to  survive 
except  in  holes  and  corners.  Ephesus  has 
given  us  more  archaic  treasures,  from  the 
deposits  bedded  down  under  the  later  re- 
constructions of  its  great  shrine  of  Artemis; 


144  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

but  here  again  the  site  of  the  city  itself,  though 
long  explored  by  Austrians,  has  not  added  to 
the  store.  The  ruins  of  the  great  Roman 
buildings  which  overlie  its  earlier  strata  have 
proved,  perhaps,  too  serious  an  impediment  to 
the  excavators  and  too  seductive  a  prize. 
Branchidae,  with  its  temple  of  Apollo  and 
Sacred  Way,  has  preserved  for  us  a  little 
archaic  statuary,  as  have  also  Samos  and  Chios. 
We  have  archaic  gold  work  and  painted  vases 
from  Rhodes,  painted  sarcophagi  from  Clazo- 
menae,  and  painted  pottery  made  there  and  at 
other  places  in  Asia  Minor,  although  found 
mostly  abroad.  But  all  this  amounts  to  a 
very  poor  representation  of  the  Asiatic  Greek 
civilization  of  600  B.C.  Fortunately  the  soil 
still  holds  far  more  than  has  been  got  out  of 
it.  With  those  two  exceptions,  Miletus  and 
Ephesus,  the  sites  of  the  elder  Hellenic  cities 
on  or  near  the  Anatolian  coast  still  await 
excavators  who  will  go  to  the  bottom  of  all 
things  and  dig  systematically  over  a  large 
area;  while  some  sites  await  any  excavation 
whatsoever,  except  such  as  is  practised  by 
plundering  peasants. 

In    their    free    youth    the    Asiatic    Greeks 
carried  into  fullest  practice  the  Hellenic  con- 


THE   EAST   IN   600   B.C.  145 

ception  of  the  city-state,  self-governing,  self- 
contained,  exclusive.  Their  several  societies 
had  in  consequence  the  intensely  vivid  and 
interested  communal  existence  which  de- 
velops civilization  as  a  hot-house  develops 
plants;  but  they  were  not  democratic,  and 
they  had  little  sense  of  nationality — defects 
for  which  they  were  to  pay  dearly  in  the 
near  future.  In  spite  of  their  associations 
for  the  celebration  of  common  festivals,  such 
as  the  League  of  the  twelve  Ionian  cities, 
and  that  of  the  Dorian  Hexapolis  in  the 
south-west,  which  led  to  discussion  of  common 
political  interests,  a  separatist  instinct,  re- 
inforced by  the  strong  geographical  boundaries 
which  divided  most  of  the  civic  territories, 
continually  reasserted  itself.  The  same  instinct 
was  ruling  the  history  of  European  Greece 
as  well.  But  while  the  disaster,  which  in  the 
end  it  would  entail,  was  long  avoided  there 
through  the  insular  situation  of  the  main 
Greek  area  as  a  whole  and  the  absence  of  any 
strong  alien  power  on  its  continental  frontier, 
disaster  impended  over  Asiatic  Greece  from 
the  moment  that  an  imperial  state  should 
become  domiciled  on  the  western  fringe  of 
the  inland  plateau.     Such  a  state  had  now 


146  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

appeared  and  established  itself;  and  if  the 
Greeks  of  Asia  had  had  eyes  to  read,  the 
writing  was  on  their  walls  in  600  B.C. 

Meanwhile  Asiatic  traders  thronged  into 
eastern  Hellas,  and  the  Hellenes  and  their 
influence  penetrated  far  up  into  Asia.  The 
hands  which  carved  some  of  the  ivories  found 
in  the  earliest  Artemisium  at  Ephesus  worked 
on  artistic  traditions  derived  ultimately  from 
the  Tigris.  So,  too,  worked  the  smiths  who 
made  the  Rhodian  jewellery,  and  so,  the 
artists  who  painted  the  Milesian  ware  and 
the  Clazomenae  sarcophagi.  On  the  other  side 
of  the  ledger  (though  three  parts  of  its  page 
is  still  hidden  from  us)  we  must  put  to  Greek 
credit  the  script  of  Lydia,  the  rock  pediments 
of  Phrygia,  and  the  forms  and  decorative 
schemes  of  many  vessels  and  small  articles 
in  clay  and  bronze  found  in  the  Gordian 
tumuli  and  at  other  points  on  the  western 
plateau  from  Mysia  to  Pamphylia.  The  men 
of  "  Javan,"  who  had  held  the  Syrian  sea  for 
a  century  past,  were  known  to  Ezekiel  as  great 
workers  in  metal;  and  in  Cyprus  they  had 
long  met  and  mingled  their  culture  with  that 
of  men  from  the  East. 


THE  EAST   IN  600   B.C.  147 

It  was  implied  in  the  opening  of  this  chapter 
that  in  600  B.C.  social  changes  in  the  East  would 
be  found  disproportionate  to  political  changes ; 
and  on  the  whole  they  seem  so  to  have  been. 
The  Assyrian  Empire  was  too  lately  fallen 
for  any  great  modification  of  life  to  have 
taken  place  in  its  area,  and,  in  fact,  the  larger 
part  of  that  area  was  being  administered 
still  by  a  Chaldsean  monarchy  on  the  estab- 
lished lines  of  Semitic  imperialism.  Whether 
the  centre  of  such  a  government  lay  at  Nineveli 
or  at  Babylon  can  have  affected  the  subject 
populations  very  little.  No  new  religious 
force  had  come  into  the  ancient  East,  unless 
the  Mede  is  to  be  reckoned  one  in  virtue 
of  his  Zoroastrianism.  Probably  he  did  not 
affect  religion  much  in  his  early  phase  of 
raiding  and  conquest.  The  great  experience, 
which  was  to  convert  the  Jews  from  insig- 
nificant and  barbarous  highlanders  into  a 
cultured,  commercial  and  cosmopolitan  people 
of  tremendous  possibilities  had  indeed  begun, 
but  only  for  a  part  of  the  race,  and  so  far 
without  obvious  result.  The  first  incursion  of 
Iranians  in  force,  and  that  slow  soakage  of 
Indo-European  tribes  from  Russia,  which  was 


148  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

to  develop  the  Armenian  people  of  history,  are 
the  most  momentous  signs  of  coming  change 
to  be  noted  between  800  and  600  B.C.  with 
one  exception,  the  full  import  of  which  will 
be  plain  at  our  next  survey.  This  was  the 
eastward  movement  of  the  Greeks. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE    EAST   IN    400    B.C. 

As  the  fifth  century  draws  to  its  close  the 
East  lies  revealed  at  last  in  the  light  of  his- 
tory written  by  Greeks.  Among  the  peoples 
whose  literary  works  are  known  to  us,  these 
were  the  first  who  showed  curiosity  about  the 
world  in  which  they  lived  and  sufficient  con- 
sciousness of  the  curiosity  of  others  to  record 
the  results  of  inquiry.  Before  our  present 
date  the  Greeks  had  inquired  a  good  deal 
about  the  East,  and  not  of  Orientals  alone. 
Their  own  public  men,  military  and  civil, 
their  men  of  science,  their  men  of  letters, 
their  merchants  in  unknown  number,  even 
soldiers  of  theirs  in  thousands,  had  gone 
up  into  Inner  Asia  and  returned.  Leading 
Athenians,  Solon,  Hippias  and  Themistocles, 
had  been  received  at  Eastern  courts  or  had  ac- 
companied Eastern  sovereigns  to  war,  and  one 

more  famous  even  than  these,  Alcibiades,  had 
149 


150  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

lately  lived  with  a  Persian  satrap.  Greek 
physicians,  Democedes  of  Croton,  Apollonides 
of  Cos,  Ctesias  of  Cnidus,  had  ministered  to 
kings  and  queens  of  Persia  in  their  palaces 
Herodotus  of  Halicarnassus  had  seen  Babylon, 
perhaps,  and  certainly  good  part  of  Syria; 
Ctesias  had  dwelt  at  Susa  and  collected  notes 
for  a  history  of  the  Persian  Empire ;  Xenophon 
of  Attica  had  tramped  from  the  Mediterranean 
to  the  Tigris  and  from  the  Tigris  to  the  Black 
Sea,  and  with  him  had  marched  more  than 
ten  thousand  Greeks.  Not  only  have  works 
by  these  three  men  of  letters  survived, 
wholly  or  in  part,  to  our  time,  but  also  many 
notes  on  the  East  as  it  was  before  400  b.c. 
have  been  preserved  in  excerpts,  paraphrases 
and  epitomes  by  later  authors.  And  we  still 
have  some  archaeological  documents  to  fall 
back  upon.  If  the  cuneiform  records  of  the 
Persian  Empire  are  less  abundant  than  those  of 
the  later  Assyrian  Kingdom,  they  nevertheless 
include  such  priceless  historical  inscriptions  as 
that  graven  by  Darius,  son  of  Hystaspes,  on 
the  rock  of  Behistun.  There  are  also  hiero- 
glyphic, hieratic  and  demotic  texts  of  Persian 
Egypt;  inscriptions  of  Semitic  Syria  and  a 
few  of  archaic  Greece;  and  much  other  mis- 


THE   EAST   IN   400   B.C.  151 

cellaneous  archaeological  material  from  various 
parts  of  the  East,  which,  even  if  uninscribed, 
can  inform  us  of  local  society  and  life. 


§  1.  Eastward  Movement  of  the 
Greeks 

The  Greek  had  been  pushing  eastward  for 
a  long  time.  More  than  three  hundred  years 
ago,  as  has  been  shown  in  the  last  chapter, 
he  had  become  a  terror  in  the  farthest  Levant. 
Before  another  century  had  passed  he  found 
his  way  into  Egypt  also.  Originally  hired  as 
mercenaries  to  support  a  native  revolt  against 
Assyria,  the  Greeks  remained  in  the  Nile 
valley  not  only  to  fight  but  to  trade.  The 
first  introduction  of  them  to  the  Saite  Pharaoh, 
Psammetichus,  was  promoted  by  Gyges  the 
Lydian  to  further  his  own  ends,  but  the  first 
development  of  their  social  influence  in  Egypt 
was  due  to  the  enterprise  of  Miletus  in  estab- 
lishing a  factory  on  the  lowest  course  of  the 
Canopic  Nile.  This  post  and  two  standing 
camps  of  Greek  mercenaries,  one  at  Tahpanhes 
watching  the  approach  from  Asia,  the  other 
at  Memphis  overawing  the  capital  and  keeping 
the  road  to  Upper  Egypt,  served  to  introduce 


152  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

Ionian  civilization  to  the  Delta  in  the  seventh 
century.  Indeed,  to  this  day  our  knowledge  of 
the  earliest  fine  painted  pottery  of  Ionia  and 
Caria  depends  largely  on  the  fragments  of  their 
vases  imported  into  Egypt  which  have  been 
found  at  Tahpanhes,  Memphis  and  another 
Greek  colony,  Naukratis,  founded  a  little  later 
(as  will  be  told  presently)  to  supersede 
the  original  Milesian  factory.  Though  those 
foreign  vases  themselves,  with  their  decoration 
of  nude  figure  subjects  which  revolted  vulgar 
Egyptian  sentiment,  did  not  go  much  beyond 
the  Greek  settlements  (like  the  Greek  courte- 
sans of  Naukratis,  who  perhaps  appealed  only 
to  the  more  cosmopolitan  Saites),  their  art 
certainly  influenced  all  the  finer  art  of  the 
Saitic  age,  initiating  a  renascence  whose 
characteristics  of  excessive  refinement  and 
meticulous  delicacy  survived  to  be  reinforced 
in  the  Ptolemaic  period  by  a  new  infusion  of 
Hellenic  culture. 

So  useful  or  so  dangerous — at  any  rate  so 
numerous — did  the  Greeks  become  in  Lower 
Egypt  by  the  opening  of  the  sixth  century 
that  a  reservation  was  assigned  to  them  beside 
the  Egyptian  town  of  Piemro,  and  to  this  alone, 
according  to  Herodotus,  newcomers  from  the 


THE  EAST   IN   400   B.C.  153 

sea  were  allowed  to  make  their  way.  This 
foreign  suburb  of  Piemro  was  named  Nau- 
kratis,  and  nine  cities  of  the  Asiatic  Greeks 
founded  a  common  sanctuary  there.  Other 
maritime  communities  of  the  same  race 
(probably  the  more  powerful,  since  Miletus  is 
named  among  them)  had  their  particular 
sanctuaries  also  and  their  proper  places.  The 
Greeks  had  come  to  Egypt  to  stay.  We 
have  learned  from  the  remains  of  Naukratis 
that  throughout  the  Persian  domination, 
which  superseded  the  Saitic  before  the  close 
of  the  sixth  century,  a  constant  importa- 
tion of  products  of  Ionia,  Attica,  Sparta, 
Cyprus  and  other  Hellenic  centres  was  main- 
tained. The  place  was  in  full  life  when 
Herodotus  visited  Egypt,  and  it  continued 
to  prosper  until  the  Greek  race,  becoming 
rulers  of  all  the  land,  enthroned  Hellenism  at 
Alexandria  on  the  sea  itself. 

§  2.  Phcenician  Carriers 

Nor  was  it  only  through  Greek  sea-rovers 
and  settlers  in  Cilicia,  and  through  Greek 
mercenaries,  merchants  and  courtesans  in  the 
Nile-Delta,  that  the  East  and  the  West  had 


154  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

been  making  mutual  acquaintance.  Other 
agencies  of  communication  had  been  active  in 
bringing  Mesopotamian  models  to  the  artists 
of  the  Ionian  and  Dorian  cities  in  Asia  Minor, 
and  Ionian  models  to  Mesopotamia  and  Syria. 
The  results  are  plain  to  see,  on  the  one  hand 
in  the  fabric  and  design  of  early  ivories, 
jewellery  and  other  objects  found  in  the 
archaic  Artemisium  at  Ephesus,  and  in  the 
decoration  of  painted  pottery  produced  at 
Miletus;  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  carved 
ivories  of  the  ninth  century  found  at  Calah  on 
the  Tigris.  But  the  processes  which  produced 
these  results  are  not  so  clear.  If  the  agents 
or  carriers  of  those  mutual  influences  were 
certainly  the  Phoenicians  and  the  Lydians,  we 
cannot  yet  apportion  with  confidence  to  each 
of  these  peoples  the  responsibility  for  the 
results,  or  be  sure  that  they  were  the  only 
agents,  or  independent  of  other  middlemen 
more  directly  in  contact  with  one  party  or 
the  other. 

The  Phoenicians  have  pushed  far  afield  since 
we  looked  at  them  last.  By  founding  Carthage 
more  than  half-way  towards  the  Pillars  of 
Hercules  the  city  of  Tyre  completed  her 
occupation    of    sufficient    African    harbours, 


THE   EAST   IN   400   B.C.  155 

l^eyond  the  reach  of  Egypt,  and  out  of  the 
Greek  sphere,  to  appropriate  to  herself  by 
the  end  of  the  ninth  century  the  trade  of  the 
western  Mediterranean  basin.  By  means  of 
secondary  settlements  in  west  Sicily,  Sardinia 
and  Spain,  she  proceeded  to  convert  this 
sea  for  a  while  into  something  like  a  Phoeni- 
cian lake.  No  serious  rival  had  forestalled 
her  there  or  was  to  arise  to  dispute  her 
monopoly  till  she  herself,  long  after  our  date, 
would  provoke  Rome.  The  Greek  colonies  in 
Sicily  and  Italy,  which  looked  westward,  failed 
to  make  head  against  her  at  the  first,  and 
soon  dropped  out  of  the  running;  nor  did  the 
one  or  two  isolated  centres  of  Hellenism  on 
other  shores  do  better.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
the  eastern  basin  of  the  Mediterranean,  al- 
though it  was  her  own  home-sea.  Tyre  never 
succeeded  in  establishing  commercial  supre- 
macy, and  indeed,  so  far  as  we  know,  she  never 
seriously  tried  to  establish  it.  It  was  the  sphere 
of  the  ^gean  mariners  and  had  been  so  as  far 
back  as  Phoenician  memory  ran.  The  Late 
Minoan  Cretans  and  men  of  Argolis,the  Achaean 
rovers,  the  Ionian  pirates,  the  Milesian  armed 
merchantmen  had  successively  turned  away 
from  it  all  but  isolated  and  peaceful  ships  of 


156  THE  ANCIENT  EAST' 

Sidon  and  Tyre,  and  even  so  near  a  coast  as 
Cyprus  remained  foreign  to  the  Phoenicians  for 
centuries  after  Tyre  had  grown  to  full  estate. 
In  the  Homeric  stories  ships  of  the  Sidonians, 
though  not  unknown,  make  rare  appearances, 
and  other  early  legends  of  the  Greeks,  which 
make  mention  of  Phoenician  visits  to  Hellenic 
coasts,  imply  that  they  were  unusual  pheno- 
mena, which  aroused  much  local  curiosity  and 
were  long  remembered.  The  strangeness  of 
the  Phoenician  mariners,  the  unfamiliar  charm 
of  their  cargoes — such  were  the  impressions 
left  on  Greek  story  by  the  early  visits  of 
Phoenician  ships. 

That  they  did  pay  such  visits,  however, 
from  time  to  time  is  certain.  The  little 
Egyptian  trinkets,  which  occur  frequently  in 
Hellenic  strata  of  the  eighth  to  the  sixth 
centuries,  are  sufficient  witness  of  the  fact. 
They  are  most  numerous  in  Rhodes,  in  Caria 
and  Ionia,  and  in  the  Peloponnese.  But  the 
main  stream  of  Tyrian  commerce  hugged  the 
south  rather  than  the  north  coasts  of  the 
Eastern  Mediterranean.  Phoenician  sailors 
were  essentially  southerners — men  who,  if  they 
would  brave  now  and  again  the  cold  winds 
of  the  iEgean  and  Adriatic,  refused  to  do  so 


THE   EAST   IN   400   B.C.  157 

oftener  than  was  necessary — men  to  whom 
African  shores  and  a  climate  softened  by  the 
breath  of  the  Ocean  were  more  congenial. 

If,  however,  the  Phoenicians  were  un- 
doubtedly agents  who  introduced  the  Egyptian 
culture  to  the  early  Hellenes  of  both  Asia  and 
Europe,  did  they  also  introduce  the  Mesopo- 
tamian?  Not  to  anything  like  the  same 
extent,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  products  of 
excavations.  Indeed,  wherever  Mesopota- 
mian  influence  has  left  unmistakable  traces 
upon  Greek  soil,  as  in  Cyprus  and  Ionia  or  at 
Corinth  and  Sparta,  it  is  often  either  certain 
or  probable  that  the  carrying  agency  was  not 
Phoenician.  We  find  the  nearest  affinities  to 
archaic  Cypriote  art  (where  this  was  indebted 
to  Asiatic  art  at  all)  in  Cilician  and  in  Hittite 
Syrian  art.  Early  Ionian  and  Carian  strata 
contain  very  little  that  is  of  Egyptian 
character,  but  much  whose  inspiration  can 
be  traced  ultimately  to  Mesopotamia;  and 
research  in  inner  Asia  Minor,  imperfect  though 
its  results  are  yet,  has  brought  to  light  on 
the  plateau  so  much  parallelism  to  Ionian 
Orientalizing  art,  and  so  many  examples 
of  prior  stages  in  its  development,  that  we 
must  assume  Mesopotamian  influence  to  have 


158  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

reached  westernmost  Asia  chiefly  by  overland 
ways.  As  for  the  European  sites,  since  their 
Orientalism  appears  to  have  been  drawn  from 
Ionia,  it  also  had  come  through  Asia  overland. 

Therefore  on  the  whole,  though  Herodotus 
asserts  that  the  Phoenician  mariners  carried 
Assyrian  cargoes,  there  is  remarkably  little 
evidence  that  those  cargoes  reached  the  West, 
and  equally  little  that  Phoenicians  had  any 
considerable  direct  trade  with  Mesopotamia. 
They  may  have  been  responsible  for  the  small 
Egyptian  and  Egyptianizing  objects  which 
have  been  found  by  the  excavators  of  Car- 
chemish  and  Sakjegeuzi  in  strata  of  the  ninth 
and  eighth  centuries;  but  the  carrying  of 
similar  objects  eastward  across  the  Euphrates 
was  more  probably  in  Hittite  hands  than 
theirs.  The  strongest  Nilotic  influence  which 
affected  Mesopotamian  art  is  to  be  noticed 
during  the  latter  half  of  the  New  Assyrian 
Kingdom,  when  there  was  no  need  for  alien 
intermediaries  to  keep  Nineveh  in  communi- 
cation with  its  own  province  of  Egypt. 

Apparently,  therefore,  it  was  not  through 
the  Phoenicians  that  the  Greeks  had  learned 
most  of  what  they  knew  about  the  East  in  400 
B.C.     Other  agents  had  played  a  greater  part 


THE   EAST   IN   400    B.C.  159 

and  almost  all  the  intercommunication  had 
been  effected  by  way,  not  of  the  Levant  Sea, 
but  of  the  land  bridge  through  Asia  Minor. 
In  the  earlier  part  of  our  story,  during  the  latter 
rule  of  Assyria  in  the  farther  East  and  the 
subsequent  rule  of  the  Medes  and  the  Baby- 
lonians in  her  room,  intercourse  had  been 
carried  on  almost  entirely  by  intermediaries, 
among  whom  (if  something  must  be  allowed 
to  the  Cilicians)  the  Lydians  were  undoubtedly 
the  most  active.  In  the  later  part  of  the 
story  it  will  be  seen  that  the  intermediaries 
have  vanished;  the  barriers  are  down;  the 
East  has  itself  come  to  the  West  and  inter- 
course is  immediate  and  direct.  How  this 
happened — what  agency  brought  Greeks  and 
Orientals  into  an  intimate  contact  which  was 
to  have  the  most  momentous  consequences 
to  both — remains  to  be  told. 

§  3.  The  Coming  of  the  Persians 

We  have  seen  already  how  a  power,  whidi 
had  grown  behind  the  frontier  mountains  of  tLe 
Tigris  basin,  forced  its  way  at  last  through  ti  r 
defiles  and  issued  in  the  riverine  plains  wiiu 
fatal  results  to  the  north  Semitic  kmgs.     B) 


160  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

the  opening  of  the  sixth  century  Assyria  had 
passed  into  Median  hands,  and  these  were 
reaching  out  through  Armenia  to  central  Asia 
Minor.  Even  the  south  Semites  of  Babylonia 
had  had  to  acknowledge  the  superior  power 
of  the  newcomers  and,  probably,  to  accept 
a  kind  of  vassalage.  Thus,  since  all  lower 
Mesopotamia  with  most  part  of  Syria  obeyed 
the  Babylonian,  a  power,  partly  Iranian, 
was  already  overshadowing  two-thirds  of  the 
East  before  Cyrus  and  his  Persians  issued 
upon  the  scene.  It  is  important  to  bear 
this  fact  in  mind  when  one  comes  to  note 
the  ease  with  which  a  hitherto  obscure 
king  of  Anshan  in  Elam  would  prove  able  to 
possess  himself  of  the  whole  Semitic  Empire, 
and  the  rapidity  with  which  his  arms  would 
appear  in  the  farthest  west  of  Asia  Minor  on 
the  confines  of  the  Greeks  themselves.  Nebu- 
chadnezzar allied  with  and  obedient  to  the 
Median  king,  helping  him  on  the  Halys  in 
585  B.C.  to  arrange  with  Lydia  a  division  of 
the  peninsula  of  Asia  Minor  on  the  terms 
uti  possidetis — ^that  is  the  significant  situation 
which  will  prepare  us  to  find  Cyrus  not  quite 
half  a  century  later  lord  of  Babylon,  Jerusalem 
and  Sardes. 


THE   EAST   IN   400   B.C.  161 

What  events,  passing  in  the  far  East  among 
the  divers  groups  of  the  Iranians  themselves 
and  their  Scythian  alHes,  led  to  this  king  of  a 
district  in  Elam,  whose  own  claim  to  have 
belonged  by  blood  to  any  of  those  groups 
is  doubtful,  consolidating  all  the  Iranians 
whether  of  the  south  or  north  under  his 
single  rule  into  a  mighty  power  of  offence,  we 
do  not  know.  Stories  current  among  the 
Greeks  and  reported  by  Herodotus  and  Ctesias 
represented  Cyrus  as  in  any  case  a  Persian,  but 
as  either  grandson  of  a  Median  king  (though 
not  his  natural  heir)  or  merely  one  of  his 
court  officials.  What  the  Greeks  had  to 
account  for  (and  so  have  we)  is  the  subsequent 
disappearance  of  the  north  Iranian  kings  of 
the  Medes  and  the  fusion  of  their  subjects 
with  the  Persian  Iranians  under  a  southern 
dynasty.  And  what  the  Greeks  did  not 
know,  but  we  do,  from  cuneiform  inscriptions 
either  contemporary  with,  or  very  little  subse- 
quent to,  Cyrus'  time,  only  complicates  the 
problem ;  since  these  bear  witness  that  Cyrus 
was  known  at  first  (as  has  been  indicated 
already)  for  a  king  of  Elam,  and  not  till  later 
for  a  king  of  Persia.  Ctesias,  who  lived  at 
Susa  itself  while  it  was  the  Persian  capital, 


162  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

agrees  with  Herodotus  that  Cyrus  wrested 
the  lordship  of  the  Medes  from  the  native 
dynasty  by  force;  but  Herodotus  adds  that 
many  Medes  were  consenting  parties. 

These  problems  cannot  be  discussed  here. 
The  probability  is,  summarily,  this.  Some  part 
of  the  southern  or  Persian  group  of  Iranians 
which,  unlike  the  northern,  was  not  con- 
taminated with  Scyths,  had  advanced  into 
Elam  while  the  Medes  were  overrunning  and 
weakening  the  Semitic  Empire ;  and  in  Anshan 
it  consolidated  itself  into  a  territorial  power 
with  Susa  for  capital.  Presently  some  disaffec- 
tion arose  among  the  northern  Iranians  owing, 
perhaps,  to  favour  shown  by  the  Median  kings 
to  their  warlike  Scythian  subjects,  and  the 
malcontents  called  in  the  king  of  Anshan. 
The  issue  was  fought  out  in  central  West 
Persia,  which  had  been  dominated  by  the 
Medes  since  the  time  of  Kyaxares'  father, 
Phraortes,  and  when  it  was  decided  by  the 
secession  of  good  part  of  the  army  of  King 
Astyages,  Cyrus  of  Anshan  took  possession  of 
the  Median  Empire  with  the  goodwill  of  much 
of  the  Median  population.  This  empire  in- 
cluded then,  beside  the  original  Median  land, 
not  only  territories  conquered  from  Assyria  but 


THE   EAST   IN   400   B.C.  163 

also  all  that  part  of  Persia  which  lay  east  of 
Elam.  Some  time,  doubtless,  elapsed  before 
the  sovereignty  of  Cyrus  was  acknowledged  by 
all  Persia ;  but,  once  his  lordship  over  this  land 
was  an  accomplished  fact,  he  naturally  became 
known  as  king  primarily  of  the  Persians,  and 
only  secondarily  of  the  Medes,  while  his  seat 
remained  at  Susa  in  his  own  original  Elamite 
realm.  The  Scythian  element  in  and  about 
his  Median  province  remained  unreconciled, 
and  one  day  he  would  meet  his  death  in  a 
campaign  against  it ;  but  the  Iranian  element 
remained  faithful  to  him  and  his  son,  and  only 
after  the  death  of  the  latter  gave  expression 
by  a  general  revolt  to  its  discontent  with  the 
bargain  it  had  made. 


§  4.  Fall  of  Lydia 

Cyrus  must  have  met  with  little  or  no 
opposition  in  the  western  Median  provinces, 
for  we  find  him,  within  a  year  or  two  of  his 
recognition  by  both  Persians  and  Medes,*' not 
only  on  his  extreme  frontier,  the  Halys  river, 
but  able  to  raid  across  it  and  affront  the  power 
of  Lydia.  To  this  action  he  was  provoked  by 
Lydia  itself.     The  fall  of  the  Median  dynasty, 


164  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

with  which  the  royal  house  of  Lydia  had 
been  in  close  alliance  since  the  Halys  pact, 
was  a  disaster  which  Croesus,  now  king  of 
Sardes  in  the  room  of  Alyattes,  was  rash 
enough  to  attempt  to  repair.  He  had  con- 
tinued with  success  his  father's  policy  of 
extending  Lydian  dominion  to  the  ^gean 
at  the  expense  of  the  Ionian  Greeks;  and, 
master  of  Ephesus,  Colophon  and  Smyrna, 
as  well  as  predominant  partner  in  the  Milesian 
sphere,  he  secured  to  Lydia  the  control  and 
fruition  of  Anatolian  trade,  perhaps  the 
most  various  and  profitable  in  the  world 
at  that  time.  A  byword  for  wealth  and 
luxury,  the  Lydians  and  their  king  had 
nowadays  become  soft,  slow-moving  folk,  as 
unfit  to  cope  with  the  mountaineers  of  the  wild 
border  highlands  of  Persia  as,  if  Herodotus' 
story  is  well  founded,  they  were  ignorant  of 
their  quality.  Croesus  took  his  time,  sending 
envoys  to  consult  oracles  near  and  far.  Hero- 
dotus tells  us  that  he  applied  to  Delphi  not  less 
than  thrice  and  even  to  the  oracle  of  Ammon 
in  the  Eastern  Sahara.  At  least  a  year  must 
have  been  spent  in  these  inquiries  alone,  not 
to  speak  of  an  embassy  to  Sparta  and 
perhaps  others  to  Egypt  and  Babylon.     These 


THE   EAST  IN  400   B.C.  165 

preliminaries  at  length  completed,  the  Lydian 
gathered  the  levies  of  western  Asia  Minor  and 
set  out  for  the  East.  He  found  the  Halys  in 
flood— it  must  have  been  in  late  spring — and 
having  made  much  ado  of  crossing  it,  spent  the 
summer  in  ravaging  with  his  cavalry  the  old 
homeland  of  the  Hatti.  Thus  he  gave  Cyrus 
time  to  send  envoys  to  the  Ionian  cities  to  beg 
them  attack  Lydia  in  the  rear,  and  time  to 
come  down  himself  in  force  to  his  far  western 
province.  Croesus  was  brought  to  battle  in 
the  first  days  of  the  autumn.  The  engage- 
ment was  indecisive,  but  the  Lydians,  having 
no  mind  to  stay  out  the  winter  on  the 
bleak  Cappadocian  highlands  and  little  suspi- 
cion that  the  enemy  would  think  of  further 
warfare  before  spring,  went  back  at  their 
leisure  to  the  Hermus  valley,  only  to  hear 
at  Sardes  itself  that  the  Persian  was  hot 
in  pursuit.  A  final  battle  was  fought  under 
the  very  walls  of  the  Lydian  capital  and 
lost  by  Croesus;  the  lower  town  was  taken 
and  sacked ;  and  the  king,  who  had  shut  him- 
self with  his  guards  into  the  citadel  and 
summoned  his  allies  to  his  rescue  come  five 
months,  was  a  prisoner  of  Cyrus  within  two 
weeks.     It  was  the  end  of  Lydia  and  of  all 


166  THE   ANCIENT  EAST 

buffers  between  the  Orient  and .  Greece. 
East  and  West  were  in  direct  contact  and  the 
omens  boded  ill  to  the  West.  Cyrus  refused 
terms  to  the  Greeks,  except  the  powerful 
Milesians,  and  departing  for  the  East  again, 
left  Lydia  to  be  pacified  and  all  the  cities  of 
the  western  coasts,  Ionian,  Carian,  Lycian 
and  what  not,  excepting  only  Miletus,  to  be 
reduced  by  his  viceroys. 

§  5.  Persian  Empire 

Cyrus  himself  had  still  to  deal  with  a  part 
of  the  East  which,  not  having  been  occupied 
by  the  Medes,  though  in  a  measure  allied  and 
subservient  to  them,  saw  no  reason  now  to 
acknowledge  the  new  dynasty.  This  is  the 
part  which  had  been  included  in  the  New 
Babylonian  Empire.  The  Persian  armies  in- 
vaded Babylonia.  Nabonidus  was  defeated 
finally  at  Opis  in  June  538;  Sippara  fell, 
and  Cyrus'  general  appearing  before  Babylon 
itself  received  it  without  a  struggle  at  the 
hands  of  the  disaffected  priests  of  Bel-Marduk. 
The  famous  Herodotean  tale  of  Cyrus'  secret 
penetration  down  the  dried  bed  of  Euphrates 
seems  to  be  a  mistaken  memory  of  a  later  re- 


THE   EAST   IN   400   B.C.  167 

capture  of  the  city  after  a  revolt  from  Darius, 
of  which  more  hereafter.  Thus  once  more  it 
was  given  to  Cyrus  to  close  a  long  chapter 
of  Eastern  history — the  history  of  imperial 
Babylon.  Neither  did  he  make  it  his  capital, 
nor  would  any  other  lord  of  the  East  so  favour 
it.  If  Alexander  perhaps  intended  to  revive 
its  imperial  position,  his  successor,  Seleucus, 
so  soon  as  he  was  assured  of  his  inheritance, 
abandoned  the  Euphratean  city  for  the  banks 
of  the  Tigris  and  Orontes,  leaving  it  to 
crumble  to  the  heap  which  it  is  to-day. 

The  Syrian  fiefs  of  the  Babylonian  kings 
passed  de  jure  to  the  conqueror ;  but  probably 
Cyrus  himself  never  had  leisure  or  opportunity 
to  secure  them  de  facto.  The  last  decade  of 
his  life  seems  to  have  been  spent  in  Persia 
and  the  north-east,  largely  in  attempts  to 
reduce  the  Scythian  element,  which  threatened 
the  peace  of  Media ;  and  at  the  last,  having 
brought  the  enemy  to  bay  beyond  the  Araxes, 
he  met  there  defeat  and  death.  But  Cambyses 
not  only  completed  his  father's  work  in  Syria, 
but  fulfilled  what  is  said  to  have  been  his 
further  project  by  capturing  Egypt  and 
establishing  there  a  foreign  domination  which 
was  to  last,  with  some  intervals^  nearly  two 


168  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

hundred  years.  By  the  end  of  the  sixth 
century  one  territorial  empire  was  spread  over 
the  whole  East  for  the  first  time  in  history; 
and  it  was  with  a  colossus,  bestriding  the  lands 
from  the  Araxes  to  the  Upper  Nile  and  from 
the  Oxus  to  the  iEgean  Sea,  that  the  Greeks 
stood  face  to  face  in  the  gate  of  the  West. 

Before,  however,  we  become  absorbed  in 
contemplation  of  a  struggle  which  will  take  us 
into  a  wider  history,  let  us  pause  a  moment  to 
consider  the  nature  of  the  new  power  come  out 
of  the  East,  and  the  condition  of  such  of  its 
subject  peoples  as  have  mattered  most  in  the 
later  story  of  mankind.  It  should  be  remarked 
that  the  new  universal  power  is  not  only 
non-Semitic  for  the  first  time  in  well-certified 
history,  but  controlled  by  a  very  pure  Aryan 
stock,  much  nearer  kin  to  the  peoples  of  the 
West  than  any  Oriental  folk  with  which  they 
have  had  intimate  relations  hitherto.  The 
Persians  appeared  from  the  Back  of  Beyond, 
uncontaminated  by  Alarodian  savagery  and 
unhampered  by  the  theocratic  prepossessions 
and  nomadic  traditions  of  Semites.  They 
were  highlanders  of  unimpaired  vigour,  frugal 
habit,  settled  agricultural  life,  long-established 
social  cohesion  and  spiritual  religious  concep- 


THE   EAST   IN   400    B.C.  169 

tions.  Possibly,  too,  before  they  issued  from 
the  vast  Iranian  plateau,  they  were  not  wholly 
unversed  in  the  administration  of  wide  terri- 
tories. In  any  case,  their  quick  intelligence 
enabled  them  to  profit  by  models  of  imperial 
organization  which  persisted  in  the  lands  they 
now  acquired ;  for  relics  of  the  Assyrian  system 
had  survived  under  the  New  Babylonian  rule, 
and  perhaps  also  under  the  Median.  There- 
after the  experience  gained  by  Cambyses 
in  Egypt  must  have  gone  for  something  in 
the  imperial  education  of  his  successor  Darius, 
to  whom  historians  ascribe  the  final  organ- 
ization of  Persian  territorial  rule.  From 
the  latter's  reign  onward  we  find  a  regular 
provincial  system  linked  to  the  centre  as  well 
as  might  be  by  a  postal  service  passing  over 
state  roads.  The  royal  power  is  delegated  to 
several  officials,  not  always  of  the  ruling  race, 
but  independent  of  each  other  and  directly 
responsible  to  Susa  :  these  live  upon  their 
provinces  but  must  see  to  it  first  and  foremost 
that  the  centre  receives  a  fixed  quota  of  money 
and  a  fixed  quota  of  fighting  men  when 
required.  The  Great  King  maintains  royal 
residences  in  various  cities  of  the  empire,  and 
not  infrequently  visits  them;  but  in  general 


170  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

his  viceroys  are  left  singularly  free  to  keep  the 

peace  of  their  own  governorates  and  even  to 

deal  with  foreign  neighbours  at  their  proper 

discretion. 

If  we  compare  the  Persian  theory  of  Empire 
with  the  Assyrian,  we  note  still  a  capital 
fault.  The  Great  King  of  Susa  recognized 
no  more  obligation  than  his  predecessors  of 
Nineveh  to  consider  the  interests  of  those  he 
ruled  and  to  make  return  to  them  for  what  he 
took.  But  while,  on  the  one  hand,  no  better 
imperial  theory  was  conceivable  in  the  sixth 
century  B.C.,  and  certainly  none  was  held  or 
acted  upon  in  the  East  down  to  the  nineteenth 
century  a.d.,  on  the  other,  the  Persian  imperial 
practice  mitigated  its  bad  effects  far  more  than 
the  Assyrian  had  done.  Free  from  the  Semitic 
tradition  of  annual  raiding,  the  Persians  re- 
duced the  obligation  of  military  service  to  a 
bearable  burden  and  avoided  continual  provo- 
cation of  frontier  neighbours.  Free  likewise 
from  Semitic  supermonotheistic  ideas,  they 
did  not  seek  to  impose  their  creed.  Seeing 
that  the  Persian  Empire  was  extensive, 
decentralized  and  provided  with  imperfect 
means  of  communication,  it  could  subsist 
only  by  practising  provincial  tolerance.     Its 


THE   EAST   IN  400   B.C.  171 

provincial  tolerance  seems  to  have  been 
systematic.  We  know  a  good  deal  of  the 
Greeks  and  the  Jews  under  its  sway,  and  in 
the  history  of  both  we  miss  such  signs  of 
religious  and  social  oppression  as  marked 
Assyrian  rule.  In  western  Asia  Minor  the 
satraps  showed  themselves  on  the  whole  singu- 
larly conciliatory  towards  local  religious  feeling 
and  even  personally  comformable  to  it;  and 
in  Judaea  the  hope  of  the  Hebrews  that  the 
Persian  would  prove  a  deliverer  and  a  restorer 
of  their  estate  was  not  falsified.  Hardly  an 
echo  of  outrage  on  the  subjects  of  Persia  in 
time  of  peace  has  reached  our  ears.  If  the 
sovereign  of  the  Asiatic  Greek  cities  ran  counter 
to  Hellenic  feeling  by  insisting  on  "  tyrant  " 
rule,  he  did  no  more  than  continue  a  system 
under  which  most  of  those  cities  had  grown 
rich.  It  is  clear  that  they  had  little  else  to 
complain  of  than  absence  of  a  democratic 
freedom  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  some  of 
them  had  not  enjoyed  in  the  day  of  their 
independence.  The  satraps  seem  to  have 
been  supplied  with  few,  or  even  no,  Persian 
troops,  and  with  few  Persian  aides  on  their 
administrative  staff.  The  Persian  element  in 
the  provinces  must,  in  fact,  have  been  extra- 


172  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

ordinarily  small — so  small  that  an  Empire, 
which  for  more  than  two  centuries  compre- 
hended nearly  all  western  Asia,  has  left 
hardly  a  single  provincial  monument  of  itself, 
graven  on  rock  or  carved  on  stone. 

§  6.  Jews 

If  we  look  particularly  at  the  Jews — ^those 
subjects  of  Persia  who  necessarily  share  most 
of  our  interest  with  the  Greeks — we  find  that 
Persian  imperial  rule  was  no  sooner  established 
securely  over  the  former  Babylonian  fief  in 
Palestine  than  it  began  to  undo  the  destructive 
work  of  its  predecessors.  Vainly  expecting 
help  from  the  restored  Egyptian  power,  Jeru- 
salem had  held  out  against  Nebuchadnezzar 
till  587.  On  its  capture  the  dispersion  of  the 
southern  Jews,  which  had  already  begun  with 
local  emigrations  to  Egypt,  was  largely  in- 
creased by  the  deportation  of  a  numerous  body 
to  Babylonia.  As  early,  however,  as  538,  the 
year  of  Cyrus'  entry  into  Babylon  (doubtless 
as  one  result  of  that  event),  began  a  return  of 
exiles  to  Judaea  and  perhaps  also  to  Samaria. 
By  520  the  Jewish  population  in  South  Pales- 
tine was  sufficiently  strong  again  to  make 


THE  EAST   IN   400   B.C.  173 

itself  troublesome  to  Darius,  and  in  516  the 
Temple  was  in  process  of  restoration.  Before 
the  middle  of  the  next  century  Jerusalem  was 
once  more  a  fortified  city  and  its  population 
had  been  further  reinforced  by  many  returned 
exiles  who  had  imbibed  the  economic  civiliza- 
tion, and  also  the  religiosity  of  Babylonia. 
Thenceforward  the  development  of  the  Jews 
into  a  commercial  people  proceeds  without 
apparent  interruption  from  Persian  governors, 
who  (as,  for  example,  Nehemiah)  could  them- 
selves be  of  the  subject  race.  Even  if  large 
accretions  of  other  Semites,  notably  Aramseans, 
be  allowed  for — accretions  easily  accepted  by 
a  people  which  had  become  rather  a  church 
than  a  nation — it  remains  a  striking  testimony 
to  Persian  toleration  that  after  only  some  six 
or  seven  generations  the  once  insignificant 
Jews  should  have  grown  numerous  enough  to 
contribute  an  important  element  to  the  popula- 
tions of  several  foreign  cities.  It  is  worth 
remark  also  that  even  when,  presumably,  free 
to  return  to  the  home  of  their  race,  many  Jews 
preferred  to  remain  in  distant  parts  of  the 
Persian  realm.  Names  mentioned  on  contract 
tablets  of  Nippur  show  that  Jews  found  it 
profitable  to  still  sit  by  the  waters  of  Babylon 


174  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

till  late  in  the  fifth  century ;  while  in  another 
distant  province  of  the  Persian  Empire  (as  the 
papyri  of  Syene  have  disclosed)  a  flourishing 
particularjst  settlement  of  the  same  race 
persisted  right  down  to  and  after  500  b.c. 

§  7.  Asia  under  Persia 

On  the  whole  evidence  the  Persians  might 
justifiably  claim  that  their  imperial  organ- 
ization in  its  best  days,  destitute  though  it 
was  of  either  the  centralized  strength  or  the 
theoretic  justification  of  modern  civilized  rule, 
achieved  a  very  considerable  advance,  and 
that  it  is  not  unworthy  to  be  compared  even 
to  the  Roman  in  respect  of  the  freedom  and 
peace  which  in  effect  it  secured  to  its  subjects. 

Not  much  more  need — or  can — be  said  about 
the  other  conquered  peoples  before  we  revert 
to  the  Greeks.  Though  Cyrus  did  not  live  to 
receive  in  person  the  submission  of  all  the  west 
Asian  peoples,  his  son  Cambyses  had  received 
it  before  his  short  reign  of  eight  years  came 
to  an  end.  Included  in  the  empire  now  were, 
not  only  all  the  mainland  territories  once 
dominated  by  the  Medes  and  the  Babylonians, 
but  also  much  wider  lands   east,  west    and 


WaceS 


176 


176  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

south,  and  even  Mediterranean  islands  which 
lay  near  the  Asiatic  shores.  Among  these 
last  was  Cyprus,  now  more  closely  linked  to 
Phoenicia  than  of  old,  and  combining  with 
the  latter  to  provide  navies  for  the  Great 
King's  needs.  On  the  East,  the  Iranian 
plateau,  watched  from  two  royal  residences, 
Pasargadae  in  the  south  and  Ecbatana  in  the 
north,  swelled  this  realm  to  greater  dimen- 
sions than  any  previous  eastern  empire  had 
boasted.  On  the  south,  Cambyses  added 
Cyrene  and,  less  surely.  Nubia  to  Egypt 
proper,  which  Assyria  had  possessed  for  a  short 
time,  as  we  have  seen.  On  the  west,  Cyrus 
and  his  generals  had  already  secured  all  Asia 
which  lay  outside  the  Median  limit,  including 
Cilicia,  where  (as  also  in  other  realms,  e,  g, 
Phoenicia,  Cyprus,  Caria)  the  native  dynasty 
accepted  a  client  position. 

This,  however,  is  not  to  be  taken  to  mean 
that  all  the  East  settled  down  at  once  into 
contented  subservience.  Cambyses,  by  putting 
his  brother  to  death,  had  cut  off  the  direct  line 
of  succession.  A  pretender  appeared  in  the  far 
East;  Cambyses  died  on  the  march  to  meet 
him,  and  at  once  all  the  oriental  provinces, 
except  the  homeland  of  Persia,  were  up  in 


THE   EAST   IN   400   B.C.  177 

revolt.  But  a  young  cognate  of  the  royal 
house,  Darius,  son  of  Hystaspes,  a  strong 
man,  slew  the  pretender,  and  once  secure  on 
the  throne,  brought  Media,  Armenia,  Elam 
and  at  last  Babylonia,  back  to  obedience. 
The  old  imperial  city  on  the  Euphrates  would 
make  one  more  bid  for  freedom  six  years  later 
and  then  relapse  into  the  estate  of  a  pro- 
vincial town.  Darius  spent  some  twenty 
years  in  organizing  his  empire  on  the  satrap 
system,  well  known  to  us  from  Greek  sources, 
and  in  strengthening  his  frontiers .  To  promote 
the  latter  end  he  passed  over  into  Europe, 
even  crossing  the  Danube  in  511  to  check 
Scythian  raids ;  and  he  secured  the  command 
of  the  two  straits  and  the  safety  of  his  north- 
west Asiatic  possessions  by  annexing  the 
south-east  of  the  Balkan  peninsula  with  the 
flourishing  Greek  cities  on  its  coasts. 

§  8.  Persia  and  the  Greeks 

The  sixth  century  closed  and  the  fifth 
century  ran  three  years  of  its  course  in 
apparently  unbroken  peace  between  East  and 
West.  But  trouble  was  near  at  hand.  Persia 
had  imposed  herself  on  cities  which  possessed 


178  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

a  civilization  superior,  not  only  potentially 
but  actually,  to  her  own;  on  cities  where 
individual  and  communal  passion  for  freedom 
constituted  the  one  religion  incompatible  with 
her  tolerant  sway;  on  cities  conscious  of 
national  identity  with  a  powerful  group  out- 
side the  Persian  Empire,  and  certain  sooner 
or  later  to  engage  that  group  in  warfare  on 
their  behalf. 

Large  causes,  therefore,  lay  behind  the 
friction  and  intrigue  which,  after  a  generation 
of  subjection,  caused  the  Ionian  cities,  led,  as 
of  old,  by  Miletus,  to  ring  up  the  first  act  of 
a  dramatic  struggle  destined  to  make  history 
for  a  very  long  time  to  come.  We  cannot 
examine  here  in  detail  the  particular  events 
which  induced  the  Ionian  Revolt.  Sufficient 
to  say  they  all  had  their  spring  in  the  great 
city  of  Miletus,  whose  merchant  princes  and 
merchant  people  were  determined  to  regain 
the  power  and  primacy  which  they  had 
enjoyed  till  lately.  A  preliminary  failure  to 
aggrandize  themselves  with  the  goodwill  of 
Persia  actually  brought  on  their  revolt,  but 
it  only  precipitated  a  struggle  inevitable 
ultimately  on  one  side  of  the  iEgean  or  the 
other. 


THE   EAST   IN   400   B.C.  179 

After  setting  the  whole  AnatoHan  coast 
from  the  Bosporus  to  PamphyUa  and  even 
Cyprus  in  a  blaze  for  two  years,  the  Ionian 
Revolt  failed,  owing  as  much  to  the  particu- 
larist  jealousies  of  the  Greek  cities  them- 
selves as  to  vigorous  measures  taken  against 
them  by  Darius  on  land  and  his  obedient 
Phoenicians  at  sea.  A  naval  defeat  sealed 
the  fate  of  Miletus,  whose  citizens  found,  to 
the  horror  of  all  Greece,  that,  on  occasion, 
the  Persian  would  treat  rebels  like  a  loyal  suc- 
cessor of  Shalmaneser  and  Nebuchadnezzar. 
But  even  though  it  failed,  the  Revolt  brought 
on  a  second  act  in  the  drama.  For,  on  the 
one  hand,  it  had  involved  in  Persian  politics 
certain  cities  of  the  Greek  motherlands, 
notably  Athens,  whose  contingent,  greatly 
daring,  affronted  the  Great  King  by  help- 
ing to  burn  the  lower  town  of  Sardes ;  and 
on  the  other,  it  had  prompted  a  despot  on 
the  European  shore  of  the  Dardanelles,  one 
Miltiades,  an  Athenian  destined  to  immortal 
fame,  to  incense  Darius  yet  more  by  seizing 
his  islands  of  Lemnos  and  Imbros. 

Evidently  neither  could  Asiatic  Greeks  be 
trusted,  even  though  their  claws  were  cut  by 
disarmament  and  their  motives  for  rebellion 


180  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

had  been  lessened  by  the  removal  of  their 
despots,  nor  could  the  Balkan  province  be  held 
securely,  while  the  western  Greeks  remained 
defiant  and  Athens,  in  particular,  aiming  at 
the  control  of  ^gean  trade,  supported  the 
Ionian  colonies.  Therefore  Darius  determined 
to  strike  at  this  city  whose  exiled  despot, 
Hippias,  promised  a  treacherous  co-operation ; 
and  he  summoned  other  Greek  states  to  make 
formal  submission  and  keep  the  peace.  A 
first  armada  sent  to  coast  round  the  northern 
shore  in  492  added  Macedonia  to  the  Persian 
Empire;  but  it  was  crippled  and  stayed  by 
storms.  A  second,  sent  two  years  later  direct 
across  the  ^gean,  reduced  the  Cyclad  isles, 
revenged  itself  on  Eretria,  one  of  the  minor 
culprits  in  the  Sardian  affair,  and  finally 
brought  up  by  the  Attic  shore  at  Marathon. 
The  world-famous  defeat  which  its  landing 
parties  suffered  there  should  be  related  by  a 
historian  rather  of  Greece  than  of  the  East; 
and  so  too  should  the  issue  of  a  third  and 
last  invasion  which,  ten  years  later,  after  old 
Darius'  death,  Xerxes  led  in  person  to  defeat 
at  Salamis,  and  left  to  meet  final  rout  under 
his  generalissimo  at  Platsea.  For  our  purpose 
it  will  be  enough  to  note  the  effects  which 


THE  EAST   IN   400   B.C.  181 

this  momentous  series  of  events  had  on  the 
East  itself. 


§  9.  Results  of  the  Persian  Attacks 
ON  Greece 

Obviously  the  European  failure  of  Persia 
affected  the  defeated  less  than  the  victorious 
party.  Except  upon  the  westernmost  fringe 
of  the  Persian  Empire  we  have  no  warrant  for 
saying  that  it  had  any  serious  political  result 
at  all.  A  revolt  of  Egypt  which  broke  out 
in  the  last  year  of  Darius,  and  was  easily 
suppressed  by  his  successor,  seems  not  to  have 
been  connected  with  the  Persian  disaster  at 
Marathon;  and  even  when  two  more  signal 
defeats  had  been  suffered  in  Greece,  and  a 
fourth  off  the  shore  of  Asia  itself — the  battle 
of  Mycale — upon  which  followed  closely  the 
loss  of  Sestus,  the  European  key  of  the  Helles- 
pont, and  more  remotely  the  loss  not  only  of 
all  Persian  holdings  in  the  Balkans  and  the 
islands,  but  also  of  the  Ionian  Greek  cities 
and  most  of  the  ^olian,  and  at  last  (after  the 
final  naval  defeat  off  the  Eurymedon)  of  the 
whole  littoral  of  Anatolia  from  Pamphylia 
right  round  to  the  Propontis — not  even  after 


182  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

all  these  defeats  and  losses  did  the  Persian 
power  suffer  diminution  in  inner  Asia  or  loss 
of  prestige  in  inland  Asia  Minor.  Some  years, 
indeed,  had  still  to  elapse  before  the  ever- 
restless  Egyptian  province  used  the  oppor- 
tunity of  Xerxes'  death  to  league  itself  with 
the  new  power  and  make  a  fresh  attempt  to 
shake  off  the  Persian  yoke ;  but  once  more  it 
tried  in  vain. 

When  Persia  abandoned  direct  sovereignty 
over  the  Anatolian  littoral  she  suffered  little 
commercial  loss  and  became  more  secure.  It 
is  clear  that  her  satraps  continued  to  manage 
the  western  trade  and  equally  clear  that  the 
wealth  of  her  empire  increased  in  greater 
ratio  than  that  of  the  Greek  cities.  There 
is  little  evidence  for  Hellenic  commercial 
expansion  consequent  on  the  Persian  wars, 
but  much  for  continued  and  even  increas- 
ing Hellenic  poverty.  In  the  event  Persia 
found  herself  in  a  position  almost  to  re- 
gain by  gold  what  she  had  lost  by  battle, 
and  to  exercise  a  financial  influence  on 
Greece  greater  and  longer  lasting  than  she 
ever  established  by  arms.  Moreover,  her 
empire  was  less  likely  to  be  attacked  when 
it  was  limited  by  the   western  edge  of  the 


THE   EAST   IN   400   B.C.  183 

Anatolian  plateau,  and  no  longer  tried  to 
hold  any  European  territory.  There  is  a 
geographical  diversity  between  the  Anatolian 
littoral  and  the  plateau.  In  all  ages  the  latter 
alone  has  been  an  integral  part  of  inner  Asia, 
and  the  society  and  politics  of  the  one  have 
remained  distinct  from  those  of  the  other. 
The  strong  frontier  of  Asia  at  its  western 
peninsular  extremity  lies  not  on,  but  behind 
the  coast. 

At  the  same  time,  although  their  immediate 
results  to  the  Persian  Empire  were  not  very 
hurtful,  those  abortive  expeditions  to  Europe 
had  sown  the  seeds  of  ultimate  catastrophe. 
As  a  direct  consequence  of  them  the  Greeks 
acquired  consciousness  of  their  own  fighting 
value  on  both  land  and  sea  as  compared  with 
the  peoples  of  inner  Asia  and  the  Phoenicians. 
Their  former  fear  of  numerical  superiorities 
was  allayed,  and  much  of  the  mystery,  which 
had  hitherto  magnified  and  shielded  Oriental 
power,  was  dissipated.  No  less  obviously 
those  expeditions  served  to  suggest  to  the 
Greeks  for  the  first  time  that  there  existed 
both  a  common  enemy  of  all  their  race  and 
an  external  field  for  their  own  common  en- 
croachment and  plundering.     So  far  as   an 


184  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

idea  of  nationality  was  destined  ever  to  be 
operative  on  Greek  minds  it  would  draw  its 
inspiration  thenceforward  from  a  sense  of  com- 
mon superiority  and  common  hostility  to  the 
Oriental.  Persia,  in  a  word,  had  laid  the 
foundations  and  promoted  the  development  of 
a  Greek  nationality  in  a  common  ambition 
directed  against  herself.  It  was  her  fate  also, 
by  forcing  Athens  into  the  front  of  the 
Greek  states,  to  give  the  nascent  nation  the 
most  inspiriting  and  enterprising  of  leaders — 
the  one  most  fertile  in  imperial  ideas  and  most 
apt  to  proceed  to  their  realization  :  and  in 
her  retreat  before  that  nation  she  drew  her 
pursuer  into  a  world  which,  had  she  herself 
never  advanced  into  Europe,  would  probably 
not  have  seen  him  for  centuries  to  come. 

Moreover,  by  a  subsequent  change  of  atti- 
tude towards  her  victorious  foe — though  that 
change  was  not  wholly  to  her  discredit- 
Persia  bred  in  the  Greeks  a  still  better  conceit 
of  themselves  and  a  better  understanding  of 
her  weakness.  The  Persians,  with  the  in- 
telligence and  versatility  for  which  their  race 
has  always  been  remarkable,  passed  very 
rapidly  from  overweening  contempt  to  ex- 
cessive admiration  of  the  Greeks.     They  set 


THE   EAST   IN   400    B.C.  185 

to  work  almost  at  once  to  attract  Hellenic 
statesmen  and  men  of  science  to  their 
own  society,  and  to  make  use  of  Hellenic 
soldiers  and  sailors.  We  soon  find  western 
satraps  cultivating  cordial  relations  with  the 
Ionian  cities,  hospitably  entertaining  Greeks 
of  distinction  and  conciliating  Greek  political 
and  religious  prepossessions.  They  must  have 
attained  considerable  success,  while  thus  un- 
wittingly preparing  disaster.  When,  a  little 
more  than  a  century  later,  western  Europe 
would  come  eastward  in  force,  to  make  an  end 
of  Persian  dominion,  some  of  the  greater  Ionian 
and  Carian  cities  would  offer  a  prolonged  re- 
sistance to  it  which  is  not  to  be  accounted  for 
only  by  the  influence  of  Persian  gold  or  of  a  Per- 
sian element  in  their  administration.  Miletus 
and  Halicarnassus  shut  their  gates  and  de- 
fended their  walls  desperately  against  Alex- 
ander because  they  conceived  their  own  best 
interests  to  be  involved  in  the  continuance  of 
the  Persian  Empire.  Nor  were  the  Persians 
less  successful  with  Greeks  actually  taken  into 
their  service.  The  Greek  mercenaries  re- 
mained to  a  man  loyal  to  the  Great  King  when 
the  Greek  attack  came,  and  gave  Alexander 
his  hardest  fighting  in  the  three  great  battles 


186  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

which  decided  the  fate  of  the  East.  None  the 
less,  such  an  attitude  towards  Greeks  was 
suicidal.  It  exalted  the  spirit  of  Europe  while 
it  depraved  the  courage  and  sapped  the  self- 
reliance  of  Asia. 

§  10.  The  First  Counter-Attacks 

This,  however,  is  to  anticipate  the  sequel. 
Let  us  finally  fix  our  eyes  on  the  Eastern  world 
in  400  B.C.  and  review  it  as  it  must  then  have 
appeared  to  eyes  from  which  the  future  was 
all  concealed.  The  coasts  of  Asia  Minor, 
generally  speaking,  were  in  Greek  hands,  the 
cities  being  autonomous  trading  communities, 
as  Greeks  understood  autonomy ;  but  most  of 
them  until  four  years  previously  had  acknow- 
ledged the  suzerainty  or  rather  federal  leader- 
ship of  Athens  and  now  were  acknowledging 
less  willingly  a  Spartan  supremacy  established 
at  first  with  Persian  co-operation.  Many  of 
these  cities,  which  had  long  maintained  very 
close  relations  with  the  Persian  governors  of 
the  nearer  hinterland,  not  only  shaped  their 
policy  to  please  the  latter,  but  even  acknow- 
ledged Persian  suzerainty;  and  since,  as  it 
happens,  at   this    particular  moment  Sparta 


THE   EAST   IN   400    B.C.  187 

had  fallen  out  with  Persia,  and  a  Spartan  army, 
under  Dercyllidas,  was  occupying  the  J^olian 
district  of  the  north,  the  "  medizing  "  cities 
of  Ionia  and  Caria  were  in  some  doubt  of 
their  future.  On  the  whole  they  inclined  still 
to  the  satraps.  Persian  influence  and  even 
control  had,  in  fact,  greatly  increased  on  the 
western  coast  since  the  supersession  of  Athens 
by  a  power  unaccustomed  to  imperial  politics 
and  notoriously  inapt  in  naval  matters;  and 
the  fleets  of  Phcenicia  and  Cyprus,  whose  Greek 
princes  had  fallen  under  Phoenician  domina- 
tion, had  regained  supremacy  at  sea. 

Yet,  only  a  year  before,  "  Ten  Thousand  " 
heavy-armed  Greeks  (and  near  half  as  many 
again  of  all  arms),  mostly  Spartan,  had  marched 
right  through  western  Asia.  They  went  as 
mercenary  allies  of  a  larger  native  force  led  by 
Cyrus,  Persian  prince-governpr  of  west  central 
Anatolia,  who  coveted  the  diadem  of  his  newly 
enthroned  brother.  Having  traversed  the  old 
Lydian  and  Phrygian  kingdoms  they  moved 
down  into  Cilicia  and  up  again  over  north  Syria 
to  the  Euphrates,  bound  (though  they  only 
learned  it  at  last  by  the  waters  of  the  Great 
River  itself)  for  Babylon.  But  they  never 
reached  that  city.     Cyrus  met  death  and  his 


188  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

oriental  soldiers  accepted  defeat  at  Cunaxa, 
some  four  days'  march  short  of  the  goal.  But 
the  undefeated  Greeks,  refusing  to  surrender, 
and,  few  though  they  were,  so  greatly  dreaded 
by  the  Persians  that  they  were  not  directly 
molested,  had  to  get  back  to  their  own  land  as 
best  they  might.  How,  robbed  of  their  original 
leaders  they  yet  reached  the  Black  Sea  and 
safety  by  way  of  the  Tigris  valley  and  the 
wild  passes  of  Kurdish  Armenia  all  readers  of 
Xenophon,  the  Athenian  who  succeeded  to 
the  command,  know  well.  Now  in  400  B.C. 
they  were  reappearing  in  the  cities  of  west 
Asia  and  Europe  to  tell  how  open  was  the 
inner  continent  to  bold  plunderers  and  how 
little  ten  Orientals  availed  in  attack  or  defence 
against  one  Greek.  Such  stories  then  and 
there  incited  Sparta  to  a  forward  policy,  and 
one  day  would  encourage  a  stronger  Western 
power  than  hers  to  march  to  the  conquest  of 
the  East. 

We  are  fortunate  in  having  Xenophon's 
detailed  narrative  of  the  adventures  of  these 
Greeks,  if  only  because  it  throws  light 
by  the  way  on  inner  Asia  almost  at  the 
very  moment  of  our  survey.  We  see  Sardes 
under  Persia  what  it  had  been  under  Lydia, 


THE  EAST   IN   400   B.C.  189 

the  capital  city  of  Anatolia;  we  see  the  great 
valley  plains  of  Lydia  and  Phrygia,  north 
and  south,  well  peopled,  well  supplied,  and 
well  in  hand,  while  the  rough  foothills  and 
rougher  heights  of  Taurus  are  held  by  con- 
tumacious mountaineers  who  are  kept  out  of 
the  plains  only  by  such  periodic  chastisement 
as  Cyrus  allowed  his  army  to  inflict  in  Pisidia 
and  Lycaonia.  Cilicia  is  being  administered 
and  defended  by  its  own  prince,  who  bears  the 
same  name  or  title  as  his  predecessor  in  the 
days  of  Sennacherib,  but  is  feudally  account- 
able to  the  Great  King.  His  land  is  so  far  his 
private  property  that  Cyrus,  though  would- 
be  lord  of  all  the  empire,  encourages  the 
pillage  of  the  rich  provincial  capital.  The 
fleet  of  Cyrus  lands  men  and  stores  unmolested 
in  north  Syria,  while  the  inner  country  up  to 
the  Euphrates  and  down  its  valley  as  far  as 
Babylonia  is  at  peace.  The  Great  King  is 
able  to  assemble  above  half  a  million  men 
from  the  east  and  south  to  meet  his  foe, 
besides  the  levy  of  Media,  a  province  which 
now  seems  to  include  most  of  the  ancient 
Assyria.  These  hundreds  of  thousands  con- 
stitute a  host  untrained,  undisciplined,  un- 
stable, unused  to  service,  little  like  the  ordered 


190  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

battalions   of   an   essentially   military   power 
such  as  the  Assyrian  had  been. 

From  the  story  of  the  Retreat  certain 
further  inferences  may  be  drawn.  First, 
Babylonia  was  a  part  of  the  empire  not  very 
well  affected  to  the  Great  King;  or  else  the 
Greeks  would  have  been  neither  allowed  by 
the  local  militia  to  enter  it  so  easily  nor 
encouraged  by  the  Persians  to  leave  it. 
Second,  the  ancient  Assyria  was  a  peaceful 
province  not  coerced  by  a  standing  Persian 
force  or  garrisons  of  any  strength.  Third, 
southern  Kurdistan  was  not  held  by  or  for 
the  Great  King  and  it  paid  tribute  only  to 
occasional  pressure.  Fourth,  the  rest  of 
Kurdistan  and  Armenia  as  far  north  as  the 
upper  arm  of  the  Euphrates  was  held,  pre- 
cariously, by  the  Persians;  and  lastly,  north 
of  the  Euphrates  valley  up  to  the  Black  Sea 
all  was  practical  independence.  We  do  not 
know  anything  precise  about  the  far  eastern 
provinces  or  the  south  Syrian  in  this  year, 
400.  Artaxerxes,  the  Great  King,  came  from 
Susa  to  meet  his  rebellious  brother,  but  to 
Babylon  he  returned  to  put  to  death  the 
betrayed  leaders  of  the  Greeks.  At  this 
moment  Ctesias,  the  Cnidian  Greek,  was  his 


THE   EAST   IN    400   B.C.  191 

court  physician  and  no  friend  either  to 
Cyrus  or  to  Spartans;  he  was  even  then  in 
corresponder  ce  with  the  Athenian  Conon  who 
would  presently  be  made  a  Persian  admiral 
and  smash  the  Spartan  fleet.  Of  his  history 
of  Persia  some  few  fragments  and  some 
epitomized  extracts  relating  to  this  time  have 
survived.  These  have  a  value,  which  the  mass 
of  his  book  seems  not  to  have  had;  for  they 
relate  what  a  contemporary,  singularly  well 
placed  to  learn  court  news,  heard  and  saw.  One 
gathers  that  king  and  court  had  fallen  away 
from  the  ideas  and  practice  of  the  first  Cyrus. 
Artaxerxes  was  unwarlike,  lax  in  religion 
(though  he  had  been  duly  consecrated  at 
Pasargadae)  and  addicted  to  non-Zoroastrian 
practices.  Many  Persians  great  and  small  were 
disaffected  towards  him  and  numbers  rallied 
to  his  brother;  but  he  had  some  Western 
adventurers  in  his  army.  Royal  ladies  wielded 
almost  more  power  at  the  court  than  the 
Great  King,  and  quarrelled  bitterly  with  one 
another. 

Plutarch,  who  drew  material  for  his  life  of 
Artaxerxes  not  only  from  Ctesias,  but  also  from 
authorities  now  lost  to  us,  leaves  us  with  much 
the  same  impression  of  the  lords  of  the  East 


192  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

at  the  close  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.  Corrupt 
and  treacherous  central  rule,  largely  directed 
by  harem  intrigue;  an  unenthusiastic  body 
of  subjects,  abandoned  to  the  schemes  of 
satraps;  inefficient  and  casually  collected 
armies  in  which  foreign  mercenaries  were 
almost  the  only  genuine  soldiers — such  was 
Persia  now.  It  was  something  very  unlike 
the  vigorous  rule  of  Cyrus  and  the  imperial 
system  of  the  first  Darius — something  very 
like  the  Ottoman  Empire  in  the  eighteenth 
century  a.d. — something  which  would  collapse 
before  the  first  Western  leader  of  men  who 
could  command  money  of  his  own  making  and 
a  professional  army  of  his  own  people. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE   VICTORY   OF  THE   WEST 

The  climax  was  reached  in  about  seventy 
years  more.  When  these  had  passed  into 
history,  so  had  also  the  Persian  Empire,  and 
the  East,  as  the  Greeks  had  conceived  it  thus 
far  and  we  have  understood  it,  was  subject 
to  the  European  race  which  a  century  and  a 
half  before  it  had  tried  to  subdue  in  Europe 
itself.  To  this  race  (and  to  the  historian 
also)  "  the  East,"  as  a  geographical  term, 
standing  equally  for  a  spatial  area  and  for  a 
social  idea,  has  ceased  to  mean  what  it  once 
meant :  and  the  change  would  be  lasting.  It  is 
true  that  the  East  did  not  ce-ase  to  be  distin- 
guished as  such ;  for  it  would  gradually  shake 
itself  free  again,  not  only  from  control  by  the 
West,  but  from  the  influence  of  the  latter' s 
social  ideas.  Nevertheless,  since  the  Western 
men,  when  they  went  back  to  their  own  land, 

N  193 


194  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

had  brought  the  East  into  the  world  known 
to  them — into  a  circle  of  lands  accepted  as 
the  dwelling  of  civilized  man — the  date  of 
Alexander's  overthrow  of  the  Persian  Empire 
makes  an  epoch  which  divides  universal 
history  as  hardly  any  other  divides  it. 

Dramatic  as  the  final  catastrophe  would  be, 
it  will  not  surprise  us  when  it  comes,  nor  did 
it,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  surprise  the  generation 
which  witnessed  it.  The  romantic  conception 
of  Alexander,  as  a  little  David  who  dared  a  huge 
Goliath,  ignores  the  facts  of  previous  history, 
and  would  have  occurred  to  no  contemporary 
who  had  read  the  signs  of  the  times.  The 
Eastern  colossus  had  been  dwindling  so  fast 
for  nearly  a  century  that  a  Macedonian  king, 
who  had  already  subdued  the  Balkan  penin- 
sula, loomed  at  least  as  large  in  the  world's 
eye,  when  he  crossed  the  Hellespont,  as  the 
titular  Emperor  of  contumacious  satraps  and 
ever-rebelling  provinces  of  western  Asia.  To 
accept  this  view  we  have  only  to  look  back 
over  seventy  years  shice  that  march  of  Ten 
Thousand  Greeks,  with  which  our  last  survey 
closed. 


THE   VICTORY  OF  THE  WEST     195 


§  1.  Persia  and  its  Provinces 

Before  the  expedition  of  Cyrus  there  may 
have  been,  and  evidently  were,  enough  seeds 
of  corruption  in  the  state  of  Persia ;  but  they 
had  not  become  known  by  their  fruits.  No 
satrap  for  a  century  past  had  tried  to  detach 
himself  and  his  province  from  the  Empire; 
hardly  a  subject  people  had  attempted  to 
re-assert  its  independence.  There  were,  in- 
deed, two  exceptions,  both  of  them  peoples 
which  had  never  identified  themselves  at  any 
time  with  the  fortunes  of  their  alien  masters. 
One  of  these  was,  of  course,  the  Asiatic  Greek, 
the  other  was  the  Egyptian  people ;  but  the 
contumacy  of  the  first  threatened  a  danger 
not  yet  realized  by  Asia;  the  rebellious 
spirit  of  the  last  concerned,  as  yet,  itself 
alone. 

It  was  Egypt,  however,  which  really  gave 
the  first  warning  of  Persian  dissolution.  The 
weakest  spot  in  the  Assyrian  Empire  proved 
weakest  in  the  Persian.  The  natural  barriers 
of  desert,  swamp  and  sea,  set  between  Egypt 
and  the  neighbouring  continent,  are  so  strong 
that    no    Asiatic    Power,    which    has    been 


196  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

tempted  to  conquer  the  rich  Nile  valley,  has 
ever  been  able  to  keep  it  long.  Under  its 
own  leaders  or  some  rebellious  officer  of  its  new 
masters  it  has  reasserted  independence  sooner 
or  later,  and  all  history  is  witness  that  no  one, 
whether  in  Asia  or  in  Europe,  holds  Egypt 
as  a  foreign  province  unless  he  holds  also  the 
sea.  During  the  century  which  had  elapsed 
since  Cambyses'  conquest  the  Egyptians  had 
rebelled  more  than  once  (most  persistently 
about  460),  calling  in  the  sea-lords  to  their 
help  on  each  occasion.  Finally,  just  before 
the  death  of  Darius  Nothus,  and  some  five 
years  before  Cyrus  left  Sardes,  they  rose 
again  under  an  Egyptian,  and  thereafter,  for 
about  sixty  years,  not  the  kings  of  Susa,  but 
three  native  dynasties  in  succession,  were  to 
rule  Egypt.  The  harm  done  to  the  Persian 
Empire  by  this  defection  was  not  measured 
by  the  mere  loss  of  the  revenues  of  a  province. 
The  new  kings  of  Egypt,  who  owed  much  to 
Greek  support,  repaid  this  by  helping  every 
enemy  of  the  Great  King  and  every  rebel 
against  his  authority.  It  was  they  who  gave 
asylum  to  the  admiral  and  fleet  of  Cyrus  after 
Cunaxa,  and  sent  corn  to  Agesilaus  when  he 
invaded  Asia  Minor;    they  supplied  money 


THE   VICTORY   OF  THE   WEST     197 

and  ships  to  the  Spartan  fleet  in  394,  and 
helped  Evagoras  of  Cyprus  in  a  long  resist- 
ance to  his  suzerain.  When  Tyre  and  the 
cities  of  the  Cilician  coast  revolted  in  380, 
Egypt  was  privy  to  their  designs,  and  she 
made  common  cause  with  the  satraps  and 
governors  of  Western  Asia,  Syria  and  Phoenicia 
when,  in  combination,  they  planned  rebellion 
in  373  to  the  grave  peril  of  the  Empire. 
Twelve  years  later  we  find  an  Egyptian  king 
marching  in  person  to  raise  Phoenicia. 

The  Persian  made  more  than  one  effort  to 
recover  his  province .  After  conspicuous  failure 
with  his  own  generals  Artaxerxes  adopted 
tardily  the  course  which  Clearchus,  captain 
of  the  Ten  Thousand,  is  said  to  have  advised 
after  the  battle  of  Cunaxa,  and  tried  his 
fortune  once  more  with  Greek  condottieri,  only 
to  find  Greek  generals  and  Greek  mercenaries 
arrayed  against  them.  It  had  come  to  this, 
that  the  Persian  king  and  his  revolted  province 
equally  depended  on  mercenary  swords, 
neither  daring  to  meet  Greek  except  with 
Greek.  Well  had  the  lesson  of  the  march  of 
the  Ten  Thousand  been  read,  marked  and 
digested  in  the  East ! 


198  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 


§  2.  Persia  and  the  West 

It  had  been  marked  in  the  West  as  well,  and 
its  fruits  were  patent  within  five  years.  The 
dominant  Greek  state  of  the  hour,  avowing 
an  ambition  which  no  Greek  had  betrayed 
before,  sent  its  king,  Agesilaus,  across  to  Asia 
Minor  to  follow  up  the  establishment  of 
Spartan  hegemony  on  the  coasts  by  an  in- 
vasion of  inland  Persia.  He  never  penetrated 
farther  than  about  half-way  up  the  Maeander 
Valley,  and  did  Persia  no  harm  worth  speaking 
of ;  for  he  was  not  the  leader,  nor  had  he  the 
resources  in  men  and  in  money,  to  carry 
through  so  distant  and  doubtful  an  adventure. 
But  Agesilaus'  campaigning  in  Asia  Minor 
between  397  and  394  has  this  historical 
significance :  it  demonstrates  that  Greeks  had 
come  to  regard  a  march  on  Susa  as  feasible 
and  desirable. 

It  was  not,  however,  in  fact  feasible  even 
then.  Apart  from  the  lack  of  a  military  force 
in  any  one  state  of  Greece  large  enough, 
sufficiently  trained,  and  led  by  a  leader  of  the 
necessary  magnetism  and  genius  for  organiza- 
tion, to  undertake,  unaided  by  allies  on  the 


THE  VICTORY  OF  THE  WEST     199 

way,  a  successful  march  to  a  point  many 
months  distant  from  its  base — apart  from 
this  deficiency,  the  Empire  to  be  conquered 
had  not  yet  been  really  shaken.  The  Ten 
Thousand  Greeks  would  in  all  likelihood  never 
have  got  under  Clearchus  to  Cunaxa  or  any- 
where within  hundreds  of  miles  of  it,  but  for 
the  fact  that  Cyrus  was  with  them  and  the 
adherents  of  his  rising  star  were  supplying 
their  wants  and  had  cleared  a  road  for  them 
through  Asia  Minor  and  Syria.  In  their 
Retreat  they  were  desperate  men,  of  whom 
the  Great  King  was  glad  to  be  quit.  The 
successful  accomplishment  of  that  retreat 
must  not  blind  us  to  the  almost  certain  failure 
which  would  have  befallen  the  advance  had 
it  been  attempted  under  like  conditions. 

§  3.  The  Satraps 

What,  ultimately,  was  to  reduce  the  Persian 
Empire  to  such  weakness  that  a  Western 
power  would  be  able  to  strike  at  its  heart 
with  little  more  than  forty  thousand  men, 
was  the  disease  of  disloyalty  which  spread 
among  the  great  officers  during  the  first  half 
of  the  fourth  century.     Before  Cyrus'  expedi- 


200  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

tion  we  have  not  heard  of  either  satraps  or 
client  provinces  raising  the  standard  of  revolt 
(except  in  Egypt),  since  the  Empire  had  been 
well  established;  and  if  there  was  evident 
collusion  with  that  expedition  on  the  part  of 
provincial  officers  in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria, 
the  fact  has  little  political  significance,  seeing 
that  Cyrus  was  a  scion  of  the  royal  house, 
and  the  favourite  of  the  Queen-Mother.  But 
the  fourth  century  is  hardly  well  begun  before 
we  find  satraps  and  princes  aiding  the  king's 
enemies  and  fighting  for  their  own  hand 
against  him  or  a  rival  officer.  Agesilaus  was 
helped  in  Asia  Minor  both  by  the  prince  of 
Paphlagonia  and  by  a  Persian  noble.  Twenty 
years  later  Ariobarzanes  of  Pontus  rises  in 
revolt ;  and  hard  on  his  defection  follows  a 
great  rebellion  planned  by  the  satraps  of 
Caria,  Ionia,  Lydia,  Phrj^gia  and  Cappadocia 
— nearly  all  Asia  Minor  in  fact — in  concert 
with  coastal  cities  of  Syria  and  Phoenicia. 
Another  ten  years  pass  and  new  governors  of 
Mysia  and  Lydia  rise  against  their  king  with 
the  help  of  the  Egyptians  and  Mausolus, 
client  prince  of  Halicarnassus.  Treachery  or 
lack  of  resources  and  stability  brought  these 
rebels  one  after  another  to  disaster;  but  an 


THE   VICTORY  OF  THE   WEST    201 

Empire  whose  great  officers  so  often  dare 
such  adventures  is  drawing  apace  to  its 
catastrophe. 

The  causes  of  this  growing  disaffection 
among  the  satraps  are  not  far  to  seek.  At 
the  close  of  the  last  chapter  we  remarked  the 
deterioration  of  the  harem-ridden  court  in 
the  early  days  of  Artaxerxes;  and  as  time 
passed,  the  spectacle  of  a  Great  King  govern- 
ing by  treachery,  buying  his  enemies,  and 
impotent  to  recover  Egypt  even  with  their 
mercenary  help  had  its  effect.  Belief  gained 
ground  that  the  ship  of  Empire  was  sinking, 
and  even  in  Susa  the  fear  grew  that  a  wind 
from  the  West  was  to  finish  her.  The  Great 
King's  court  officers  watched  Greek  politics 
during  the  first  seventy  years  of  the  fourth 
century  with  ever  closer  attention.  Not 
content  with  enrolling  as  many  Greeks  as 
possible  in  the  royal  service,  they  used  the 
royal  gold  to  such  effect  to  buy  or  support 
Greek  politicians  whose  influence  could  be 
directed  to  hindering  a  union  of  Greek 
states  and  checking  the  rising  power  of  any 
unit,  that  a  Greek  orator  said  in  a  famous 
passage  that  the  archers  stamped  on  the 
Great   King's  coins  were  already  a    greater 


202  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

danger  to  Greece  than  his  real  archers  had 
ever  been. 

By  such  lavish  corruption,  by  buying  the 
soldiers  and  the  politicians  of  the  enemy,  a 
better  face  was  put  for  a  while  on  the  fortunes 
of  the  dynasty  and  the  Empire.  Before  the 
death  of  the  aged  Artaxerxes  Mnemon  in 
358,  the  revolt  of  the  Western  satraps  had 
collapsed.  His  successor,  Ochus,  who,  to 
reach  the  throne,  murdered  his  kin  like  any 
eighteenth-century  sultan  of  Stambul,  over- 
came Egyptian  obstinacy  about  346,  after 
two  abortive  attempts,  by  means  of  hireling 
Greek  troops,  and  by  similar  vicarious  help  he 
recovered  Sidon  and  the  Isle  of  Cyprus.  But 
it  was  little  more  than  the  dying  flicker  of  a 
flame  fanned  for  the  moment  by  that  same 
Western  wind  which  was  already  blowing  up 
to  the  gale  that  would  extinguish  it.  The 
heart  of  the  Empire  was  not  less  rotten 
because  its  shell  was  patched,  and  in  the 
event,  when  the  storm  broke  a  few  years  later, 
nothing  in  West  Asia  was  able  to  make  any 
stand  except  two  or  three  maritime  cities, 
which  fought,  not  for  Persia,  but  for  their 
own  commercial  monopolies. 


THE   VICTORY  OF  THE   WEST     203 


§  4.  Macedonia 

The  storm  had  been  gathering  on  the 
Western  horizon  for  some  time  past.  Twenty- 
years  earher  there  had  come  to  the  throne 
of  Macedonia  a  man  of  singular  constructive 
abiUty  and  most  definite  ambition.  His  heri- 
tage— or  rather  his  prize,  for  he  was  not  next 
of  kin  to  his  predecessor — was  the  central 
southern  part  of  the  Balkan  peninsula,  a 
region  of  broad  fat  plains  fringed  and  crossed 
by  rough  hills.  It  was  inhabited  by  sturdy 
gentry  and  peasantry  and  by  agile  highlanders, 
all  composed  of  the  same  racial  elements  as 
the  Greeks,  with  perhaps  a  preponderant 
infusion  of  northern  blood  which  had  come 
south  long  ago  with  emigrants  from  the 
Danubian  lands.  The  social  development 
of  the  Macedonians — ^to  give  various  peoples 
one  generic  name — had,  for  certain  reasons, 
not  been  nearly  so  rapid  as  that  of  their 
southern  cousins.  They  had  never  come  in 
contact  with  the  higher  .Egean  civilization, 
nor  had  they  mixed  their  blood  with  that  of 
cultivated  predecessors;  their  land  was  con- 
tinental, poor  in  harbours,  remote  from  the 


204  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

luxurious  centres  of  life,  and  of  comparatively 
rigorous  climate ;  its  configuration  had  offered 
them  no  inducement  to  form  city-states  and 
enter  on  intense  political  life.  But,  in  com- 
pensation, they  entered  the  fourth  century 
unexhausted,  without  tribal  or  political  im- 
pediments to  unity,  and  with  a  broad  territory 
of  greater  natural  resources  than  any  southern 
Greek  state.  Macedonia  could  supply  itself 
with  the  best  cereal  foods  and  to  spare,  and 
had  unexploited  veins  of  gold  ore.  But  the 
most  important  thing  to  remark  is  this — ^that, 
compared  with  Greece,  Macedonia  was  a  region 
of  Central  Europe.  In  the  latter' s  progress 
to  imperial  power  we  shall  watch  for  the 
first  time  in  recorded  history  a  continental 
European  folk  bearing  down  peninsular 
populations  of  the  Mediterranean. 

Philip  of  Macedon,  who  had  been  trained 
in  the  arts  of  both  war  and  peace  in  a 
Greek  city,  saw  the  weakness  of  the  divided 
Hellenes,  and  the  possible  strength  of  his 
own  people,  and  he  set  to  work  from  the  first 
with  abounding  energy,  dogged  persistence 
and  immense  talent  for  organization  to  make 
a  single  armed  nation,  which  should  be 
more  than  a  match  for  the  many  communi- 


THE   VICTORY  OF  THE  WEST    205 

ties  of  Hellas.  How  he  accomplished  his 
purpose  in  about  twenty  years :  how  he 
began  by  opening  mines  of  precious  metal  on 
his  south-eastern  coast,  and  with  the  proceeds 
hired  mercenaries  :  how  he  had  Macedonian 
peasants  drilled  to  fight  in  a  phalanx  forma- 
tion more  mobile  than  the  Theban  and  with 
a  longer  spear,  while  the  gentry  were  trained 
as  heavy  cavalry :  how  he  made  experiments 
with  his  new  soldiers  on  the  inland  tribes, 
and  so  enlarged  his  effective  dominions  that 
he  was  able  to  marshal  henceforward  far 
more  than  his  own  Emathian  clansmen  :  how 
for  six  years  he  perfected  this  national  army 
till  it  was  as  professional  a  fighting  machine 
as  any  condottiere's  band  of  that  day,  while 
at  the  same  time  larger  and  of  much  better 
temper  :  how,  when  it  was  ready  in  the  spring 
of  the  year  353,  he  began  a  fifteen  years'  war 
of  encroachment  on  the  holdings  of  the  Greek 
states  and  particularly  of  Athens,  attacking 
some  of  her  maritime  colonies  in  Macedonia 
and  Thrace :  how,  after  a  campaign  in 
inland  Thrace  and  on  the  Chersonese,  he 
appeared  in  Greece,  where  he  pushed  at  last 
through  Thermopylae  :  how,  again,  he  with- 
drew  for    several    seasons    into    the    Balkan 


206  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

Peninsula,  raided  it  from  the  Adriatic  to  the 
Black  Sea,  and  ended  with  an  attack  on  the 
last  and  greatest  of  its  free  Greek  coastal 
cities,  Perinthus  and  Byzantium :  how, 
finally,  in  338,  coming  south  in  full  force,  he 
crushed  in  the  single  battle  of  Chseronea  the 
two  considerable  powers  of  Greece,  Athens 
and  Thebes,  and  secured  at  last  from  every 
Greek  state  except  Sparta  (which  he  could 
afford  to  neglect)  recognition  of  his  suzerainty 
— ^these  stages  in  Philip's  making  of  a  Euro- 
pean nation  and  a  European  empire  must 
not  be  described  more  fully  here.  What  con- 
cerns us  is  the  end  of  it  all ;  for  the  end  was 
the  arraying  of  that  new  nation  and  that  new 
empire  for  a  descent  on  Asia.  A  year  after 
Chseronea  Philip  was  named  by  the  Congress  of 
Corinth  Captain- General  of  all  Greeks  to  wreak 
the  secular  vengeance  of  Hellas  on  Persia. 

How  long  he  had  consciously  destined  his 
fighting  machine  to  an  ultimate  invasion  of 
Asia  we  do  not  know.  The  Athenians  had 
explicitly  stated  to  the  Great  King  in  341 
that  such  was  the  Macedonian's  ambition, 
and  four  years  earlier  public  suggestion  of  it 
had  been  made  by  the  famous  orator,  Iso- 
crates,   in  an  open  letter  written   to   Philip 


THE   VICTORY   OF  THE  WEST     207 

himself.  Since  the  last  named  was  a  man  of 
long  sight  and  sustained  purpose,  it  is  not 
impossible  that  he  had  conceived  such  an 
ambition  in  youth  and  had  been  cherishing  it 
all  along.  While  Philip  was  in  Thebes  as  a 
young  man,  old  Agesilaus,  who  first  of  Greeks 
had  conceived  the  idea  of  invading  the  inland 
East,  was  still  seeking  a  way  to  realize  his 
oft-frustrated  project;  and  in  the  end  he 
went  off  to  Egypt  to  make  a  last  effort 
after  Philip  was  already  on  the  throne.  The 
idea  had  certainly  been  long  in  the  air  that 
any  military  power  which  might  dominate 
Hellas  would  be  bound  primarily  by  self- 
interest  and  secondarily  by  racial  duty  to 
turn  its  arms  against  Asia.  The  Great  King 
himself  knew  this  as  well  as  any  one.  After 
the  Athenian  warning  in  341,  his  satraps  in 
the  north-west  of  Asia  Minor  were  bidden 
assist  Philip's  enemies  in  every  possible  way ; 
and  it  was  thanks  in  no  small  measure  to 
their  help,  that  the  Byzantines  repulsed  the 
Macedonians  from  their  walls  in  339. 

Philip  had  already  made  friends  of  the 
princely  house  of  Caria,  and  was  now  at  pains 
to  secure  a  footing  in  north-west  Asia  Minor. 
He  threw,  therefore,  an  advance  column  across 


208  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

the  Dardanelles  under  his  chief  lieutenant, 
Parmenio,  and  proposed  to  follow  it  in  the 
autumn  of  the  year  336  with  a  Grand  Army 
which  he  had  been  recruiting,  training  and 
equipping  for  a  twelvemonth.  The  day  of 
festival  which  should  inaugurate  his  great 
venture  arrived;  but  the  venture  was  not 
to  be  his.  As  he  issued  from  his  tent  to 
attend  the  games  he  fell  by  the  hand  of  a 
private  enemy ;  and  his  young  son,  Alexander, 
had  at  first  enough  to  do  to  re-establish  a 
throne  which  proved  to  have  more  foes  than 
friends. 

§  5.  Alexander's  Conquest  of  the  East 

A  year  and  a  half  later  Alexander's  friends 
and  foes  knew  that  a  greater  soldier  and 
empire-maker  than  Philip  ruled  in  his  stead, 
and  that  the  father's  plan  of  Asiatic  conquest 
would  suffer  nothing  at  the  hands  of  the  son. 
The  neighbours  of  Macedonia  as  far  as  the 
Danube  and  all  the  states  of  the  Greek 
peninsula  had  been  cowed  to  submission 
again  in  one  swift  and  decisive  campaign. 
The  States-General  of  Greece,  re-convoked  at 
Corinth,  confirmed  Philip's  son  in  the  Captain- 
Generalship   of   Hellas,  and   Parmenio,  once 


THE   VICTORY  OF  THE  WEST    209 

more  despatched  to  Asia,  secured  the  farther 
shore  of  the  Hellespont.  With  about  forty 
thousand  seasoned  horse  and  foot,  and  with 
auxiliary  services  unusually  efficient  for  the 
age,  Alexander  crossed  to  Persian  soil  in  the 
spring  of  334. 

There  was  no  other  army  in  Asia  Minor  to 
offer  him  battle  in  form  than  a  force  about 
equal  in  numbers  to  his  own,  which  had  been 
collected  locally  by  the  western  satraps.  Ex- 
cept for  its  contingent  of  Greek  mercenaries, 
this  was  much  inferior  to  the  Macedonian  force 
in  fighting  value.  Fended  by  Parmenio  from 
the  Hellespontine  shore,  it  did  the  best  it 
could  by  waiting  on  the  farther  bank  of  the 
Granicus,  the  nearest  considerable  stream 
which  enters  the  Marmora,  in  order  either 
to  draw  Alexander's  attack,  or  to  cut  his 
communications,  should  he  move  on  into  the 
continent.  It  did  not  wait  long.  The  heavy 
Macedonian  cavalry  dashed  through  the  stream 
late  on  an  afternoon,  made  short  work  of  the 
Asiatic  constituents,  and  having  cleared  a  way 
for  the  phalanx  helped  it  to  cut  up  the  Greek 
contingent  almost  to  a  man  before  night  fell. 
Alexander  was  left  with  nothing  but  city  de- 
fences and  hill  tribes  to  deal  with  till  a  fuller 


210  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

levy  could  be  collected  from  other  provinces 
of  the  Persian  Empire  and  brought  down  to 
the  west,  a  process  which  would  take  many 
months,  and  in  fact  did  take  a  full  year.  But 
some  of  the  Western  cities  offered  no  small 
impediment  to  his  progress.  If  ^Eolia,  Lydia 
and  Ionia  made  no  resistance  worth  mention- 
ing, the  two  chief  cities  of  Caria,  Miletus  and 
Halicarnassus,  which  had  been  enjoying  in 
virtual  freedom  a  lion's  share  of  ^gean  trade 
for  the  past  century,  were  not  disposed  to 
become  appanages  of  a  military  empire.  The 
pretension  of  Alexander  to  lead  a  crusade 
against  the  ancient  oppressor  of  the  Hellenic 
race  weighed  neither  with  them,  nor,  for  that 
matter,  with  any  of  the  Greeks  in  Asia  or 
Europe,  except  a  few  enthusiasts.  During  the 
past  seventy  years,  ever  since  celebrations  of 
the  deliverance  of  Hellas  from  the  Persian  had 
been  replaced  by  aspirations  towards  counter 
invasion,  the  desire  to  wreak  holy  vengeance 
had  gone  for  little  or  nothing,  but  desire  to 
plunder  Persia  had  gone  for  a  great  deal. 
Therefore,  any  definite  venture  into  Asia 
aroused  envy,  not  enthusiasm,  among  those 
who  would  be  forestalled  by  its  success. 
Neither  with  ships  nor  men  had  any  leading 


THE   VICTORY   OF  THE  WEST    211 

Greek  state  come  forward  to  help  Alexander, 
and  by  the  time  he  had  taken  Miletus  he 
realized  that  he  must  play  his  game  alone, 
with  his  own  people  for  his  own  ends.  Thence- 
forward, neglecting  the  Greeks,  he  postponed 
his  march  into  the  heart  of  the  Persian  Empire 
till  he  had  secured  every  avenue  leading 
thither  from  the  sea,  whether  through  Asia 
Minor  or  Syria  or  Egypt. 

After  reducing  Halicarnassus  and  Caria, 
Alexander  did  no  more  in  Asia  Minor  than 
parade  the  western  part  of  it,  the  better  to 
secure  the  footing  he  had  gained  in  the 
continent.  Here  and  there  he  had  a  brush 
with  hill-men,  who  had  long  been  unused  to 
effective  control,  while  with  one  or  two  of 
their  towns  he  had  to  make  terms;  but  on 
the  approach  of  winter,  Anatolia  was  at  his 
feet,  and  he  seated  himself  at  Gordion,  in 
the  Sakaria  valley,  where  he  could  at  once 
guard  his  communications  with  the  Helles- 
pont and  prepare  for  advance  into  farther  Asia 
by  an  easy  road.  Eastern  Asia  Minor,  that 
is  Cappadocia,  Pontus  and  Armenia,  he  left 
alone,  and  its  contingents  would  still  be 
arrayed  on  the  Persian  side  in  both  the  great 
battles  to  come.      Certain  northern  districts 


212  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

also,  which  had  long  been  practically  in- 
dependent of  Persia,  e.  g,  BithjTiia  and 
Paphlagonia,  had  not  been  touched  yet.  It 
was  not  worth  his  while  at  that  moment  to 
spend  time  in  fighting  for  lands  which  would 
fall  in  any  case  if  the  Empire  fell,  and  could 
easily  be  held  in  check  from  western  Asia  Minor 
in  the  meantime.  His  goal  was  far  inland, 
his  danger  he  well  knew,  on  the  sea — danger 
of  possible  co-operation  between  Greek  fleets 
and  the  greater  coastal  cities  of  the  ^Egean 
and  the  Levant.  Therefore,  with  the  first 
of  the  spring  he  moved  down  into  Cilicia  to 
make  the  ports  of  Syria  and  Egypt  his,  before 
striking  at  the  heart  of  the  Empire. 

The  Great  King,  last  and  weakest  of  the 
Darius  name,  had  realized  the  greatness  of 
his  peril  and  come  down  with  the  levy  of  all 
the  Empire  to  try  to  crush  the  invader  in  the 
gate  of  the  south  lands.  Letting  his  foe  pass 
round  the  angle  of  the  Levant  coast,  Darius, 
who  had  been  waiting  behind  the  screen  of 
Amanus,  slipped  through  the  hills  and  cut 
off  the  Macedonian's  retreat  in  the  defile  of 
Issus  between  mountain  and  sea.  Against 
another  general  and  less  seasoned  troops  a 
compact  and  disciplined  Oriental  force  would 


THE   VICTORY  OF  THE   WEST     213 

probably  have  ended  the  invasion  there  and 
then ;  but  that  of  Darius  was  neither  compact 
nor  disciplined.  The  narrowness  of  the  field 
compressed  it  into  a  mob;  and  Alexander 
and  his  men,  facing  about,  saw  the  Persians 
delivered  into  their  hand.  The  fight  lasted 
little  longer  than  at  Granicus  and  the  result 
was  as  decisive  a  butchery.  Camp,  baggage- 
train,  the  royal  harem,  letters  from  Greek 
states,  and  the  persons  of  Greek  envoys  sent 
to  devise  the  destruction  of  the  Captain - 
General — all  fell  to  Alexander. 

Assured  against  meeting  another  levy  of  the 
Empire  for  at  least  a  twelvemonth,  he  moved 
on  into  Syria.  In  this  narrow  land  his  chief 
business,  as  we  have  seen,  was  with  the  coast 
towns.  He  must  have  all  the  ports  in  his 
hand  before  going  up  into  Asia.  The  lesser 
dared  not  gainsay  the  victorious  phalanx ;  but 
the  queen  of  them  all.  Tyre,  mistress  of  the 
eastern  trade,  shut  the  gates  of  her  island 
citadel  and  set  the  western  intruder  the  hardest 
military  task  of  his  life.  But  the  capture  of 
the  chief  base  of  the  hostile  fleets  which  still 
ranged  the  ^gean  was  all  essential  to  Alex- 
ander, and  he  bridged  the  sea  to  effect  it. 
One  other  city,  Gaza,  commanding  the  road 


214  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

to  Egypt,  showed  the  same  spirit  with  less 
resources,  and  the  year  was  far  spent  before 
the  Macedonians  appeared  on  the  Nile  to 
receive  the  ready  submission  of  a  people 
which  had  never  willingly  served  the  Persian. 
Here  again,  Alexander's  chief  solicitude  was 
for  the  coasts.  Independent  Cyrene,  lying 
farthest  west,  was  one  remaining  danger  and 
the  openness  of  the  Nile  mouths  another.  The 
first  danger  dissolved  with  the  submission, 
which  Cyrene  sent  to  meet  him  as  he  moved 
into  Marmarica  to  the  attack;  the  second 
was  conjured  by  the  creation  of  the  port  of 
Alexandria,  perhaps  the  most  signal  act  of 
Alexander's  life,  seeing  to  what  stature  the 
city  would  grow,  what  part  play  in  the 
development  of  Greek  and  Jew,  and  what 
vigour  retain  to  this  day.  For  the  moment, 
however,  the  new  foundation  served  primarily 
to  rivet  its  founder's  hold  on  the  shores  of 
the  Greek  and  Persian  waters.  Within  a  few 
months  the  hostile  fleets  disappeared  from  the 
Levant  and  Alexander  obtained  at  last  that 
command  of  the  sea  without  which  invasion 
of  inner  Asia  would  have  been  more  than 
perilous,  and  permanent  retention  of  Egypt 
impossible. 


THE   VICTORY   OF   THE   WEST     215 

Thus  secure  of  his   base,   he  could  strike 
inland.     He  went  up  slowly  in  the  early  part 
of  331  by  the  traditional  North  Road  through 
Philistia  and  Palestine  and  round  the  head 
of  the  Syrian  Hamad  to  Thapsacus  on  Eu- 
phrates, paying,  on  the  way,  a  visit  of  pre- 
caution to  Tyre,  which  had  cost  him  so  much 
toil  and  time  a  year  before.     None  opposed 
his  crossing  of  the  Great  River ;  none  stayed 
him    in    Mesopotamia;    none    disputed    his 
passage  of  the  Tigris,  though  the  ferrying  of 
his   force   took  five   days.     The   Great  King 
himself,   however,  was   lying  a  few  marches 
south  of  the  mounds  of  Nineveh,  in  the  plain 
of    Gaugamela,   to    which    roads    converging 
from  south,  east  and  north  had  brought  the 
levies  of    all  the  empire  which  remained  to 
him.     To  hordes  drawn  from  fighting  tribes 
living  as   far  distant   as   frontiers   of   India, 
banks    of    the    Oxus,    and    foothills    of    the 
Caucasus,   was  added  a  phalanx  of  hireling 
Greeks  more  than  three  times  as  numerous  as 
that  which  had  been  cut  up  on  the  Granicus. 
Thus  awaited  by  ten  soldiers  to  each  one  of 
his  own  on  open  ground  chosen  by  his  enemy, 
Alexander  went  still  more  slowly  forward  and 
halted   four    and    twenty    hours    to    breathe 


216  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

his  army  in  sight  of  the  Persian  outposrs. 
Refusing  to  risk  an  attack  on  that  immense 
host  in  the  dark,  he  slept  soundly  within  his 
entrenchments  till  sunrise  of  the  first  day  of 
October,  and  then  in  the  full  light  led  out 
his  men  to  decide  the  fate  of  Persia.  It 
was  decided  by  sundown,  and  half  a  million 
broken  men  were  flying  south  and  east  into 
the  gathering  night.  But  the  Battle  of  Arbela, 
as  it  is  commonly  called — the  greatest  contest 
of  armies  before  the  rise  of  Rome — had  not 
been  lightly  won.  The  active  resistance  of  the 
Greek  mercenaries,  and  the  passive  resistance 
of  the  enormous  mass  of  the  Asiatic  hordes, 
which  stayed  attack  by  mere  weight  of  flesh 
and  closed  again  behind  every  penetrating 
column,  made  the  issue  doubtful,  till  Darius 
himself,  terrified  at  the  oncoming  of  the  heavy- 
Macedonian  cavalry,  turned  his  chariot  and 
lost  the  day.  Alexander's  men  had  to  thank 
the  steadiness  which  Philip's  system  had 
given  them,  but  also,  in  the  last  resort,  the 
cowardice  of  the  opposing  chief. 

The  Persian  King  survived  to  be  hunted  a 
year  later,  and  caught,  a  dying  man,  on  the 
road  to  Central  Asia ;  but  long  before  that  and 
without  another  pitched  battle  the  Persian 


THE   VICTORY   OF   THE   WEST     217 

throne  had  passed  to  Alexander.  Within  six 
months  he  had  marched  to  and  entered  in  tmn, 
without  other  let  or  hindrance  than  resistance 
of  mountain  tribesmen  in  the  passes,  the  capi- 
tals of  the  Empire — Babylon,  Susa,  Persepolis, 
Ecbatana;  and  since  these  cities  all  held  by 
him  during  his  subsequent  absence  of  six 
years  in  farther  Asia,  the  victory  of  the  West 
over  the  Ancient  East  may  be  regarded  as 
achieved  on  the  day  of  Arbela. 


CHAPTER  VI 

EPILOGUE 

Less  than  ten  years  later,  Alexander  lay 

dead  in  Babylon.     He  had  gone  forward  to 

the    east   to    acquire    more    territories    than 

we   have   surveyed   in   any    chapter   of   this 

book  or  his  fathers  had  so  much  as  known 

to  exist.     The   broad  lands  .which   are   now 

Afghanistan,  Russian  Turkestan,  the  Punjab, 

Scinde,  and  Beluchistan  had  been  subdued  by 

him  in  person  and  were  being  held  by  his 

governors   and   garrisons.     This   Macedonian 

Greek  who  had  become  an  emperor  of    the 

East   greater  than   the   greatest   theretofore, 

had    already    determined    that    his    Seat    of 

Empire  should  be  fixed  in  inner  Asia ;  and  he 

proposed  that  under  his  single  sway  East  and 

West  be  distinct  no  longer,  but  one  indivisible 

world,  inhabited   by  united  peoples.     Then, 

suddenly,  he  was  called  to  his  account,  leaving 

no  legitimate  heir  of  his  body  except  a  babe 
218 


EPILOGUE  219 

in  its  mother's  womb.     What  would  happen  ? 
What,  in  fact,  did  happen  ? 

It  is  often  said  that  the  empire  which 
Alexander  created  died  with  him.  This  is 
true  if  we  think  of  empire  as  the  realm  of  a 
single  emperor.  As  sole  ruler  of  the  vast  area 
between  the  Danube  and  the  Sutlej  Alexander 
was  to  have  no  successor.  But  if  we  think 
of  an  empire  as  the  realm  of  a  race  or  nation, 
Greater  Macedonia,  though  destined  gradually 
to  be  diminished,  would  outlive  its  founder  by 
nearly  three  hundred  years ;  and  moreover,  in 
succession  to  it,  another  Western  empire,  made 
possible  by  his  victory  and  carried  on  in  some 
respects  under  his  forms,  was  to  persist  in  the 
East  for  several  centuries  more.  As  a  political 
conquest,  Alexander's  had  results  as  long 
lasting  as  can  be  credited  to  almost  any 
conquest  in  history.  As  the  victory  of  one 
civilization  over  another  it  was  never  to  be 
brought  quite  to  nothing,  and  it  had  certain 
permanent  effects.  These  this  chapter  is 
designed  to  show:  but  first,  since  the  de- 
velopment of  the  victorious  civilization  on 
alien  soil  depended  primarily  on  the  continued 
political  supremacy  of  the  men  in  whom  it  was 
congenital, 'it  is  necessary  to  see  how  long 


220  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

and  to  what  extent  political  dominion  was 
actually  held  in  the  East  by  men  who  were 
Greeks,  either  by  birth  or  by  training. 

Out  of  the  turmoil  and  stress  of  the  thirty 
years  which  followed  Alexander's  death,  two 
Macedonians  emerged  to  divide  the  Eastern 
Empire  between  them.  The  rest — transient 
embarrassed  phantoms  of  the  Royal  House, 
regents  of  the  Empire  hardly  less  transient, 
upstart  satraps,  and  even  one-eyed  Antigonus, 
who  for  a  brief  moment  claimed  jurisdiction 
over  all  the  East — ^never  mattered  long  to  the 
world  at  large  and  matter  not  at  all  here  and 
now.  The  end  of  the  fourth  century  sees 
Seleucus  of  Babylonia  lording  it  over  the  most 
part  of  West  Asia  which  was  best  worth  having, 
except  the  southern  half  of  Syria  and  the 
coasts  of  Asia  Minor  and  certain  isles  in  sight 
of  them,  which,  if  not  subject  to  Ptolemy  of 
Egypt,  were  free  of  both  kings  or  dominated 
by  a  third,  resident  in  Europe  and  soon  to 
disappear.  In  the  event  those  two,  Seleucus 
and  Ptolemy,  alone  of  all  the  Macedonian 
successors,  would  found  dynasties  destined 
to  endure  long  enough  in  kingdoms  great 
enough  to  affect  the  general  history  of 
civilization  in  the  Ancient  East. 


EPILOGUE  221 

Seleucus  has  no  surviving  chronicler  of  the 
first  or  the  second  rank,  and  consequently 
remains  one  of  the  most  shadowy  of  the 
greater  men  of  action  in  antiquity.  We  can 
say  little  of  him  personally,  except  that  he  was 
quick  and  fearless  in  action,  prepared  to  take 
chances,  a  born  leader  in  war,  and  a  man  of 
long  sight  and  persistent  purpose.  Alexander 
had  esteemed  and  distinguished  him  highly, 
and,  marrying  him  to  Apama,  a  noble  Iranian 
lady,  convinced  him  of  his  own  opinion  that 
the  point  from  which  to  rule  an  Asiatic 
empire  was  Babylonia.  Seleucus  let  the  first 
partition  of  the  dead  man's  lands  go  by, 
and  not  till  the  first  turmoil  was  over 
and  his  friend  Ptolemy  was  securely  seated 
in  Egypt,  did  he  ask  for  a  province.  The 
province  was  Babylonia.  Ejected  by  the 
malevolence  of  Antigonus,  he  regained  it  by 
grace  of  Ptolemy  in  312,  established  ascend- 
ency over  all  satraps  to  east  of  him  during  the 
next  half-dozen  years,  letting  only  India  go, 
and  then  came  west  in  305  to  conquer  and 
slay  Antigonus  at  Ipsus  in  central  Asia  Minor. 
The  third  king,  Lysimachus  of  Thrace,  was 
disposed  of  in  281,  and  Seleucus,  dying  a  few 
months  later,  left  to  his  dynastic  successors 


222  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

an  Asiatic  empire  of  seventy-two  provinces, 
very  nearly  equal  to  Alexander's,  with  im- 
portant exceptions  in  Asia  Minor. 

In  Asia  Minor  neither  Seleucus  nor  the 
Seleucids  ever  held  anything  effectively  except 
the  main  lines  of  communication  from  East  to 
West  and  the  district  in  which  these  come  down 
to  the  ^gean  Sea.  The  south  coast,  as  has 
been  said,  remained  in  Egyptian  hands  almost 
all  through  the  Seleucid  period.  The  south- 
west obeyed  the  island  republic  of  Rhodes. 
Most  of  the  Greek  maritime  cities  of  the  north- 
west and  north  kept  their  freedom  more  or 
less  inviolate ;  while  inland  a  purely  Greek 
monarchy,  that  of  Pergamum,  gradually 
extended  its  sway  up  to  the  central  desert. 
In  the  north  a  formidable  barrier  to  Seleucid 
expansion  arose  within  five  years  of  Seleucus' 
death,  namely,  a  settlement  of  Gauls  who 
had  been  invited  across  the  straits  by  a 
king  of  Bithynia.  After  charging  and  raid- 
ing in  all  directions  these  intractable  allies 
were  penned  by  the  repeated  efforts  of  both 
the  Seleucid  and  the  Pergamene  kings  into 
the  upper  Sakaria  basin  (henceforth  to  be 
known  as  Galatia)  and  there  they  formed  a 
screen  behind  which  Bithynia  and  Paphlagonia 


EPILOGUE  223 

maintained  sturdy  independence.  The  north- 
east also  was  the  seat  of  independent  mon- 
archies. Cappadocia,  Pontus  and  Armenia, 
ruled  by  princes  of  Iranian  origin,  were 
never  integral  parts  of  the  Seleucid  Empire, 
though  consistently  friendly  to  its  rulers. 
Finally,  in  the  hill -regions  of  the  centre,  as 
of  the  coasts,  the  Seleucid  writ  did  not  run. 

Looked  at  as  a  whole,  however,  and  not 
only  from  a  Seleucid  point  of  view,  the  Ancient 
East,  during  the  century  following  Seleucus' 
death  (forty-three  years  after  Alexander's), 
was  dominated  politically  by  Hellenes  over 
fully  nine-tenths  of  its  area.  About  those 
parts  of  it  held  by  cities  actually  Greek,  or 
by  Pergamum,  no  more  need  be  said.  As  for 
Seleucus  and  his  successors,  though  the  latter, 
from  Antiochus  Soter  onward,  had  a  strain  of 
Iranian  blood,  they  held  and  proved  them- 
selves essentially  Hellenic.  Their  portraits 
from  first  to  last  show  European  features, 
often  fine.  Ptolemy  Lagus  and  all  the  Lagidae 
remained  Macedonian  Greeks  to  a  man  and  a 
woman  and  to  the  bitter  end,  with  the  greatest 
Hellenic  city  in  the  world  for  their  seat. 
As  for  the  remaining  tenth  part  of  the  East, 
almost  the  whole  of  it  was  ruled  by  princes 


224  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

who  claimed  the  title  "  philhellene,"  and 
justified  it  not  only  by  political  friendliness 
to  the  Seleucidae  and  the  Western  Greeks, 
but  also  by  encouraging  Greek  settlers  and 
Greek  manners.  So  far  as  patronage  and 
promotion  by  the  highest  powers  could  further 
it,  Hellenism  had  a  fair  chance  in  West  Asia 
from  the  conquest  of  Alexander  down  to 
the  appearance  of  Rome  in  the  East.  What 
did  it  make  of  this  chance  ?  How  far  in 
the  event  did  those  Greek  and  Macedonian 
rulers,  philhellenic  Iranian  princes  and  others, 
hellenize  West  Asia  ?  If  they  did  succeed  in 
a  measure,  but  not  so  completely  that  the 
East  ceased  to  be  distinct  from  the  West,  what 
measure  was  set  to  their  several  influences, 
and  why  ? 

Let  us  see,  f^st,  what  precisely  Hellenism 
implied  as  it  was  brought  to  Asia  by  Alexander 
and  practised  by  his  successors.  Politically 
it  implied  recognition  by  the  individual  that 
the  society  of  which  he  was  a  member  had  an 
indefeasible  and  virtually  exclusive  claim  on 
his  good  will  and  his  good  offices.  The  society 
so  recognized  was  not  a  family  or  a  tribe,  but 
a  city  and  its  proper  district,  distinguished 
from  all  other  cities  and  their  districts.     The 


Pfatee 


226  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

geographical  configuration  and  the  history  of 
Greece,  a  country  made  up  in  part  of  small 
plains  ringed  in  by  hills  and  sea,  in  part  of 
islands,  had  brought  about  this  limitation  of 
political  communities,  and  had  made  patriot- 
ism mean  to  the  Greek  devotion  to  his  city- 
state.  To  a  wider  circle  he  was  not  capable  of 
feeling  anything  like  the  same  sense  of  obliga- 
tion or,  indeed,  any  compelling  obligation  at  all. 
If  he  recognized  the  claim  of  a  group  of  city- 
states,  which  remotely  claimed  common  origin 
with  his  own,  it  was  an  academic  feeling  : 
if  he  was  conscious  of  his  community  with  all 
Hellenes  as  a  nation  it  was  only  at  moments 
of  particular  danger  at  the  hands  of  a  common 
non-Hellenic  foe.  In  short,  while  not  in- 
sensible to  the  principle  of  nationality  he 
was  rarely  capable  of  applying  it  practically 
except  in  regard  to  a  small  society  with  whose 
members  he  could  be  acquainted  personally 
and  among  whom  he  could  make  his  own 
individuality  felt.  He  had  no  feudal  tradi- 
tion, and  no  instinctive  belief  that  the  in- 
dividualities composing  a  community  must 
be  subordinate  to  any  one  individual  in  virtue 
of  the  latter's  patriarchal  or  representative 
relation  to  them. 


EPILOGUE  227 

Let  us  deal  with  this  poHtical  implication 
of  Hellenism  before  we  pass  on  to  its  other 
qualities.  In  its  purity  political  Hellenism 
was  obviously  not  compatible  with  the 
monarchical  Macedonian  state,  which  was 
based  on  feudal  recognition  of  the  paternal  or 
representative  relation  of  a  single  individual 
to  many  peoples  composing  a  nation.  The 
Macedonians  themselves,  therefore,  could  not 
carry  to  Asia,  together  with  their  own  national 
patriotism  (somewhat  intensified,  perhaps,  by 
intercourse  during  past  generations  with 
Greek  city-states)  any  more  than  an  outside 
knowledge  of  the  civic  patriotism  of  the  Greeks. 
Since,  however,  they  brought  in  their  train 
a  great  number  of  actual  Greeks  and  had  to 
look  to  settlement  of  these  in  Asia  for  in- 
dispensable support  of  their  own  rule,  com- 
merce and  civilization,  they  were  bound  to 
create  conditions  under  which  civic  patriotism, 
of  which  they  knew  the  value  as  well  as  the 
danger,  might  continue  to  exist  in  some 
measure.  Their  obvious  policy  was  to  found 
cities  wherever  they  wished  to  settle  Greeks, 
and  to  found  them  along  main  lines  of  com- 
munication, where  they  might  promote  trade 
and  serve  as  guardians  of  the  roads;    while 


228  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

at  the  same  time,  owing  to  their  continual 
intercourse  with  each  other,  their  exposure  to 
native  sojourners  and  immigrants  and  their 
necessary  dependence  on  the  centre  of  govern- 
ment, they  could  hardly  repeat  in  Asia  the 
self-centred  exclusiveness  characteristic  of 
cities  in  either  European  Greece  or  the  strait 
and  sharply  divided  valleys  of  the  west 
Anatolian  coast.  In  fact,  by  design  or 
not,  most  Seleucid  foundations  were  planted 
in  comparatively  open  country.  Seleucus 
alone  is  said  to  have  been  responsible  for 
seventy-five  cities,  of  which  the  majority 
clustered  in  that  great  meeting-place  of 
through  routes.  North  Syria,  and  along  the 
main  highway  through  northern  Asia  Minor 
to  Ephesus.  In  this  city,  Seleucus  himself 
spent  most  of  his  last  years.  We  know  of  few 
Greek  colonies,  or  none,  founded  by  him  or 
his  dynasty  beyond  the  earlier  limits  of  the 
Ancient  East,  where,  in  Afghanistan,  Turkestan 
and  India,  Alexander  had  planted  nearly  all 
his  new  cities.  Possibly  his  successor  held 
these  to  be  sufficient ;  probably  he  saw  neither 
prospect  of  advantage  nor  hope  of  success  in 
creating  Greek  cities  in  a  region  so  vast  and 
so  alien ;  certainly  neither  he  nor  his  dynasty 


EPILOGUE  229 

was  ever  in  such  a  position  to  support  or 
maintain  them,  if  founded  east  of  Media,  as 
Alexander  was  and  proposed  to  be,  had  longer 
life  been  his.  But  in  western  Asia  from 
Seleucia  on  Tigris,  an  immense  city  of  over 
half  a  million  souls,  to  Laodicea  on  Lycus  and 
the  confines  of  the  old  Ionian  littoral,  Seleucus 
and  his  successors  created  urban  life,  casting 
it  in  a  Hellenic  mould  whose  form,  destined 
to  persist  for  many  centuries  to  come,  would 
exercise  momentous  influence  on  the  early 
history  of  the  Christian  religion. 

By  founding  so  many  urban  communities 
of  Greek  type  the  Macedonian  kings  of  West 
Asia  undeniably  introduced  Hellenism  as  an 
agent  of  political  civilization  into  much  of  the 
Ancient  East,  which  needed  it  badly  and 
profited  by  it.  But  the  influence  of  their 
Hellenism  was  potent  and  durable  only  in  those 
newly  founded,  or  newly  organized,  urban 
communities  and  their  immediate  neighbour- 
hood. Where  these  clustered  thickly,  as  along 
the  Lower  Orontes  and  on  the  S5rrian  coast-line, 
or  where  Greek  farmers  had  settled  in  the  inter- 
spaces, as  in  Cyrrhestica  (^.  e,  roughly,  central 
North  Syria),  Hellenism  went  far  to  make  whole 
districts  acquire  a  civic  spirit,  which,  though 


280  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

implying  much  less  sense  of  personal  freedom 
and  responsibility  than  in  Attica  or  Laconia, 
would  have  been  recognized  by  an  Athenian 
or  a  Spartan  as  kin  to  his  own  patriotism. 
But  where  the  cities  were  strung  on  single 
lines  of  communication  at  considerable  inter- 
vals, as  in  ceiitral  Asia  Minor  and  in  Meso- 
potamia, they  exerted  little  political  influence 
outside  their  own  walls.  For  Hellenism  was 
and  remained  essentially  a  property  of  com- 
munities small  enough  for  each  individual  to 
exert  his  own  personal  influence  on  political 
and  social  practice.  So  soon  as  a  community 
became,  in  numbers  or  distribution,  such 
as  to  call  for  centralized,  or  even  repre- 
sentative, administration,  patriotism  of  the 
Hellenic  type  languished  and  died.  It  was 
quite  incapable  of  permeating  whole  peoples 
or  of  making  a  nation,  whether  in  the  East 
or  anywhere  else.  Yet  in  the  East  peoples 
have  always  mattered  more  than  cities,  by 
whomsoever  founded  and  maintained. 

Hellenism,  however,  had,  by  this  time,  not 
only  a  political  implication  but  also  moral 
and  intellectual  implications  which  were  partly 
effects,  partly  causes,  of  its  political  energy. 
As  has  been  well  said  by  a  modern  historian 


EPILOGUE  231 

of  the  Seleucid  house,  Hellenism  meant, 
besides  a  politico -social  creed,  also  a  certain 
attitude  of  mind.  The  characteristic  feature 
of  this  attitude  was  what  has  been  called 
Humanism,  this  word  being  used  in  a  special 
sense  to  signify  intellectual  interest  confined 
to  human  affairs,  but  free  within  the  range  of 
these.  All  Greeks  were  not,  of  course,  equally 
humanistic  in  this  sense.  Among  them,  as 
in  all  societies,  there  were  found  temperaments 
to  which  transcendental  speculation  appealed, 
and  these  increasing  in  number,  as  with  the 
loss  of  their  freedom  the  city-states  ceased 
to  stand  for  the  realization  of  the  highest 
possible  good  in  this  world,  made  Orphism 
and  other  mystic  cults  prevail  ever  more  and 
more  in  Hellas.  But  when  Alexander  carried 
Hellenism  to  Asia  it  was  still  broadly  true  that 
the  mass  of  civilized  Hellenes  regarded  any- 
thing that  could  not  be  apprehended  by  the 
intellect  through  the  senses  as  not  only  outside 
their  range  of  interest  but  non-existent. 
Further,  while  nothing  was  held  so  sacred 
that  it  might  not  be  probed  or  discussed  with 
the  full  vigour  of  an  inquirer's  intelligence, 
no  consideration  except  the  logic  of  appre- 
hended facts  should  determine  his  conclusion. 


232  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

An  argument  was  to  be  followed  wherever 
it  might  lead,  and  its  consequences  must  be 
faced  in  full  without  withdrawal  behind  any 
non -intellectual  screen.  Perfect  freedom  of 
thought  and  perfect  freedom  of  discussion 
over  the  whole  range  of  human  matters; 
perfect  freedom  of  consequent  action,  so  the 
community  remained  uninjured — this  was  the 
typical  Hellene's  ideal.  An  instinctive  effort 
to  realize  it  was  his  habitual  attitude  towards 
life.  His  motto  anticipated  the  Roman  poet's 
"  I  am  human  :  nothing  human  do  I  hold 
no  business  of  mine  !  " 

By  the  time  the  Western  conquest  of  Asia 
was  complete,  this  attitude,  which  had  grown 
more  and  more  prevalent  in  the  centres  of 
Greek  life  throughout  the  fifth  and  fourth 
centuries,  had  come  to  exclude  anything  like 
religiosity  from  the  typical  Hellenic  character. 
A  religion  the  Greek  had  of  course,  but  he 
held  it  lightly,  neither  possessed  by  it  nor 
even  looking  to  it  for  guidance  in  the  affairs 
of  his  life.  If  he  believed  in  a  world  beyond 
the  grave,  he  thought  little  about  it  or  not 
at  all,  framing  his  actions  with  a  view  solely 
to  happiness  in  the  flesh.  A  possible  fate  in 
the    hereafter    seemed   to   him   to    have   no 


EPILOGUE  283 

bearing  on  his  conduct  here.  That  dis- 
embodied he  might  spend  eternity  with  the 
divine,  or,  absorbed  into  the  divine  essence, 
become  himself  divine — such  ideas,  though 
not  unknown  or  without  attraction  to  rarer 
spirits,  were  wholly  impotent  to  combat  the 
vivid  interest  in  life  and  the  lust  of  strenuous 
endeavour  which  were  bred  in  the  small 
worlds  of  the  city-states. 

The  Greeks,  then,  who  passed  to  Asia  in 
Alexander's  wake  had  no  religious  message  for 
the  East,  and  still  less  had  the  Macedonian 
captains  who  succeeded  him.  Born  and  bred 
to  semibar baric  superstitions,  they  had  long 
discarded  these,  some  for  the  freethinking 
attitude  of  the  Greek,  and  all  for  the  cult 
of  the  sword.  The  only  thing  which,  in 
their  Emperor's  lifetime,  stood  to  them  for 
religion  was  a  feudal  devotion  to  himself  and 
his  house.  For  a  while  this  feeling  survived 
in  the  ranks  of  the  army,  as  Eumenes,  wily 
Greek  that  he  was,  proved  by  the  manner  and 
success  of  his  appeals  to  dynastic  loyalty  in 
the  first  years  of  the  struggle  for  the  succes- 
sion; and  perhaps,  we  may  trace  it  longer 
still  in  the  leaders,  as  an  element,  blended 
with  something  of  homesickness  and  some- 


234  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

thing  of  national  tradition,  in  that  fatahty 
which  impelled  each  Macedonian  lord  of  Asia, 
first  Antigonus,  then  Seleucus,  finally  Antio- 
chus  the  Great,  to  hanker  after  the  possession 
of  Macedonia  and  be  prepared  to  risk  the 
East  to  win  back  the  West.  Indeed,  it  is 
a  contributory  cause  of  the  comparative 
failure  of  the  Seleucids  to  keep  their  hold  on 
their  Asiatic  Empire  that  their  hearts  were 
never  wholly  in  it. 

For  the  rest,  they  and  all  the  Macedonian 
captains  alike  were  conspicuously  irreligious 
men,  whose  gods  were  themselves.  They  were 
what  the  age  had  made  them,  and  what  all 
similar  ages  make  men  of  action.  Theirs  was 
a  time  of  wide  conquests  recently  achieved  by 
right  of  might  alone,  and  left  to  whomsoever 
should  be  mightiest.  It  was  a  time  when 
the  individual  had  suddenly  found  that  no 
accidental  defects — lack  of  birth,  or  property, 
or  allies — ^need  prevent  him  from  exploiting 
for  himself  a  vast  field  of  unmeasured  possi- 
bilities, so  he  had  a  sound  brain,  a  stout  heart 
and  a  strong  arm.  As  it  would  be  again  in 
the  age  of  the  Crusades,  in  that  of  the  Grand 
Companies,  and  in  that  of  the  Napoleonic 
conquests,  every  soldier  knew  that  it  rested 


EPILOGUE  235 

only  with  himself  and  with  opportunity, 
whether  or  no  he  should  die  a  prince.  It  was 
a  time  for  reaping  harvests  which  others  had 
sown,  for  getting  anything  for  nothing,  for 
frank  and  unashamed  lust  of  loot,  for  selling 
body  and  soul  to  the  highest  bidder,  for  being 
a  law  to  oneself.  In  such  ages  the  voice  of 
the  priest  goes  for  as  little  as  the  voice  of 
conscience,  and  the  higher  a  man  climbs,  the 
less  is  his  faith  in  a  power  above  him. 

Having  won  the  East,  however,  these 
irreligious  Macedonians  found  they  had  under 
their  hand  a  medley  of  peoples,  diverse  in 
many  characteristics,  but  almost  all  alike  in 
one,  and  that  was  their  religiosity.  Deities 
gathered  and  swarmed  in  Asia.  Men  showed 
them  fierce  fanatic  devotion  or  spent  lives  in 
contemplation  of  the  idea  of  them,  careless  of 
everything  which  Macedonians  held  worth 
living  for,  and  even  of  life  itself.  Alexander 
had  been  quick  to  perceive  the  religiosity  of 
the  new  world  into  which  he  had  come.  If 
his  power  in  the  East  was  to  rest  on  a  popular 
basis  he  knew  that  basis  must  be  religious. 
Beginning  with  Egypt  he  set  an  example  (not 
lost  on  the  man  who  would  be  his  successor 
there)  of  not   only  conciliating   priests   but 


236  THE  ANCIENT  EAST 

identifying  himself  with  the  chief  god  in  the 
traditional  manner  of  native  kings  since 
immemorial  time ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  cult  of  himself,  which  he  appears  to  have 
enjoined  increasingly  on  his  followers,  his 
subjects  and  his  allies,  as  time  went  on,  was 
consciously  devised  to  ineet  and  captivate 
the  religiosity  of  the  East.  In  Egypt  he 
must  be  Ammon,  in  Syria  he  would  be  Baal, 
in  Babylon  Bel.  He  left  the  faith  of  his 
fathers  behind  him  when  he  went  up  to  the 
East,  knowing  as  well  as  his  French  historian 
knew  in  the  nineteenth  century,  that  in  Asia 
the  "  dreams  of  Olympus  were  less  worth  than 
the  dreams  of  the  Magi  and  the  mysteries 
of  India,  pregnant  with  the  divine."  With 
these  last,  indeed,  he  showed  himself  deeply 
impressed,  and  his  recorded  attitude  towards 
the  Brahmans  of  the  Punjab  implies  the 
earliest  acknowledgment  made  publicly  by  a 
Greek,  that  in  religion  the  West  must  learn 
from  the  East. 

Alexander,  who  has  never  been  forgotten 
by  the  traditions  and  myths  of  the  East,  might 
possibly,  with  longer  life,  have  satisfied 
Asiatic  religiosity  with  an  apotheosis  of 
himself.     His  successors  failed  either  to  keep 


EPILOGUE  237 

his  divinity  alive  or  to  secure  any  general 
acceptance  of  their  own  godhead.  That  they 
tried  to  meet  the  demand  of  the  East  with  a 
new  universal  cult  of  imperial  utility  and  that 
some,  like  Antiochus  IV,  the  tyrant  of  early 
Maccabsean  history,  tried  very  hard,  is  clear. 
That  they  failed  and  that  Rome  failed  after 
them  is  writ  large  in  the  history  of  the  ex- 
pansion of  half-a-dozen  Eastern  cults  before 
the  Christian  era,  and  of  Christianity  itself. 

Only  in  the  African  province  did  Mace- 
donian rule  secure  a  religious  basis.  What 
an  Alexander  could  hardly  have  achieved  in 
Asia,  a  Ptolemy  did  easily  in  Egypt.  There 
the  de  facto  ruler,  of  whatever  race,  had 
been  installed  a  god  since  time  out  of  mind, 
and  an  omnipotent  priesthood,  dominating  a 
docile  people,  stood  about  the  throne.  The 
Assyrian  conquerors  had  stiffened  their  backs 
in  Egypt  to  save  affronting  the  gods  of  their 
fatherland;  but  the  Ptolemies,  like  the  Per- 
sians, made  no  such  mistake,  and  had  three 
centuries  of  secure  rule  for  their  reward.  The 
knowledge  that  what  the  East  demanded 
could  be  provided  easily  and  safely  even  by 
Macedonians  in  the  Nile  valley  alone  was 
doubtless  present  to  the  sagacious   mind   of 


238  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

Ptolemy  when,  letting  all  wider  lands  pass  to 
others,  he  selected  Egypt  in  the  first  partition 
of  the  provinces. 

The  Greek,  in  a  word,  had  only  his  philo- 
sophies to  offer  to  the  religiosity  of  the  East. 
But  a  philosophy  of  religion  is  a  complement 
to,  a  modifying  influence  on,  religion,  not  a 
substitute  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  instinctive 
and  profound  craving  of  mankind  for  God. 
While  this  craving  always  possessed  the 
Asiatic  mind,  the  Greek  himself,  never 
naturally  insensible  to  it,  became  more  and 
more  conscious  of  his  own  void  as  he  lived 
in  Asia.  What  had  long  stood  to  him  for 
religion,  namely  passionate  devotion  to  the 
community,  was  finding  less  and  less  to  feed 
on  under  the  restricted  political  freedom 
which  was  now  his  lot  everywhere.  Superior 
though  he  felt  his  culture  to  be  in  most 
respects,  it  lacked  one  thing  needful,  which 
inferior  cultures  around  him  possessed  in 
full.  As  time  went  on  he  became  curious, 
then  receptive,  of  the  religious  systems  among 
whose  adherents  he  found  himself,  being 
coerced  insensibly  by  nature's  abhorrence 
of  a  vacuum.  Not  that  he  swallowed  any 
Eastern  religion  whole,  or  failed,  while  assimi- 


EPILOGUE  239 

lating  what  he  took,  to  transform  it  with  his 
own  essence.  Nor  again  should  it  be  thought 
that  he  gave  nothing  at  all  in  return.  He 
gave  a  philosophy  which,  acting  almost  as 
powerfully  on  the  higher  intelligences  of  the 
East  as  their  religions  acted  on  his  intelli- 
gence, created  the  "Hellenistic  "  type,  properly 
so  called,  that  is  the  oriental  who  combined 
the  religious  instinct  of  Asia  with  the  philo- 
sophic spirit  of  Greece — such  an  oriental  as 
(to  take  two  very  great  names),  the  Stoic 
apostle  Zeno,  a  Phoenician  of  Cyprus,  or  the 
Christian  apostle,  Saul  the  Jew  of  Tarsus. 
By  the  creation  of  this  type.  East  and  West 
were  brought  at  last  very  near  together, 
divided  only  by  the  distinction  of  religious 
philosophy  in  Athens  from  philosophic 
religion  in  Syria. 

The  history  of  the  Near  East  during  the 
last  three  centuries  before  the  Christian  era 
is  the  history  of  the  gradual  passing  of  Asiatic 
religions  westward  to  occupy  the  Hellenic 
vacuum,  and  of  Hellenic  philosophical  ideas 
eastward  to  supplement  and  purify  the 
religious  systems  of  West  Asia.  How  far  the 
latter  eventually  penetrated  into  the  great 
Eastern  continent,  whether  even  to  India  or 


240  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

China,  this  is  no  place  to  discuss :  how  i  ar  the 
former  would  push  westward  is  written  in  the 
modern  history  of  Europe  and  the  New  World. 
The  expansion  of  Mithraism  and  of  half-a- 
dozen  other  Asiatic  and  Egyptian  cults,  which 
were  drawn  from  the  East  to  Greece  and 
beyond  before  the  first  century  of  the  Hellen- 
istic Age  closed,  testifies  to  the  early  existence 
of  that  spiritual  void  in  the  West  which  a 
greater  and  purer  religion,  about  to  be  born 
in  Galilee  and  nurtured  in  Antioch,  was  at 
last  to  filL  The  instrumentality  of  Alexander 
and  his  successors  in  bringing  about  or  intensi- 
fying that  contact  and  intercourse  between 
Semite  and  Greek,  which  begot  the  philosophic 
morality  of  Christianity  and  rendered  its  west- 
ward expansion  inevitable,  stands  to  their 
credit  as  a  historic  fact  of  such  tremendous 
import  that  it  may  be  allowed  to  atone  for 
more  than  all  their  sins. 

This,  then,  the  Seleucids  did — they  so  brought 
West  and  East  together  that  each  learned  from 
the  other.  But  more  than  that  cannot  be 
claimed  for  them.  They  did  not  abolish  the 
individuality  of  either ;  they  did  not  Hellenize 
even  so  much  of  West  Asia  as  they  succeeded 
in  holding  to  the  end.     In  this  they  failed  not 


EPILOGUE  241 

only  for  the  reasons  just  considered — ^laek  of 
vital  religion  in  their  Macedonians  and  their 
Greeks,  and  deterioration  of  the  Hellenism 
of  Hellenes  when  they  ceased  to  be  citizens  of 
free  city-states — but  also  through  individual 
faults  of  their  own,  which  appear  again  and 
again  as  the  dynasty  runs  its  course;  and 
perhaps  even  more  for  some  deeper  reason, 
not  understood  by  us  yet,  but  lying  behind  the 
empirical  law  that  East  is  East  and  West  is 
West. 

As  for  the  Seleucid  kings  themselves  they 
leave  on  us,  ill-known  as  their  characters 
and  actions  are,  a  clear  impression  of 
approximation  to  the  traditional  type  of  the 
Greek  of  the  Roman  age  and  since.  As  a 
dynasty  they  seem  to  have  been  quickly 
spoilt  by  power,  to  have  been  ambitious  but 
easily  contented  with  the  show  and  surface 
of  success,  to  have  been  incapable  and  con- 
temptuous of  thorough  organization,  and  to 
have  had  little  in  the  way  of  policy,  and  less 
perseverance  in  the  pursuit  of  it.  It  is  true 
that  our  piecemeal  information  comes  largely 
from  writers  who  somewhat  despised  them; 
but  the  known  history  of  the  Seleucid  Empire, 
closed  by  an  extraordinarily  facile  and 
Q 


242  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

ignominious  collapse  before  Rome,  supports 
the  judgment  that,  taken  one  with  another, 
its  kings  were  shallow  men  and  haphazard 
rulers  who  owed  it  more  to  chance  than  to 
prudence  that  their  dynasty  endured  so 
long. 

Their  strongest  hold  was  on  Syria,  and  in 
the  end  their  only  hold.  We  associate  them  in 
our  minds  particularly  with  the  great  city  of 
Antioch,  which  the  first  Seleucus  founded  on 
the  Lower  Orontes  to  gather  up  trade  from 
Egypt,  Mesopotamia  and  Asia  Minor  in  the 
North  Syrian  country.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  that  city  owes  its  fame  mainly  to  sub- 
sequent Roman  masters.  For  it  did  not 
become  the  capital  of  Seleucid  preference  till 
the  second  century  B.C. — ^till,  by  the  year  180, 
the  dynasty,  which  had  lost  both  the  Western 
and  the  Eastern  provinces,  had  to  content 
itself  with  Syria  and  Mesopotamia  alone. 
Not  only  had  the  Parthians  then  come  down 
from  Turkestan  to  the  south  of  the  Caspian 
(their  kings  assumed  Iranian  names  but  were 
they  not,  like  the  present  rulers  of  Persia, 
really  Turks?),  but  Media  too  had  asserted 
independence  and  Persia  was  fallen  away  to 


EPILOGUE  243 

the  rule  of  native  princes  in  Ears.  Seleucia 
on  Tigris  had  become  virtually  a  frontier  city 
facing  an  Iranian  and  Parthian  peril  which  the 
imperial  incapacity  of  the  Seleucids  allowed  to 
develop,  and  even  Rome  would  never  dispel. 
On  the  other  flank  of  the  empire  a  century 
of  Seleucid  efforts  to  plant  headquarters  in 
Western  Asia  Minor,  whether  at  Ephesus  or 
Sardes,  and  thence  to  prosecute  ulterior 
designs  on  Macedonia  and  Greece,  had  been 
settled  in  favour  of  Pergamum  by  the  arms 
and  mandate  of  the  coming  arbiter  of  the  East, 
the  Republic  of  Rome.  Bidden  retire  south 
of  Taurus  after  the  battle  of  Magnesia  in 
190,  summarily  ordered  out  of  Egypt  twenty 
years  later,  when  Antiochus  Epiphanes  was 
hoping  to  compensate  the  loss  of  west  and 
east  with  gain  of  the  south,  the  Seleucids  had 
no  choice  of  a  capital.  It  must  thenceforth 
be  Antioch  or  nothing. 

That,  however,  a  Macedonian  dynasty  was 
forced  to  concentrate  in  north  Syria  whatever 
Hellenism  it  had  (though  after  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  its  Hellenism  steadily  grew  less) 
during  the  last  two  centuries  before  the 
Christian   era   was    to    have    a    momentous 


244  THE   ANCIENT   EAST 

effect  on  the  history  of  the  world.  For  it 
was  one  of  the  two  determining  causes  of  an 
increase  in  the  influence  of  Hellenism  upon  the 
Western  Semites,  which  issued  ultimately  in 
the  Christian  religion.  From  Cilicia  on  the 
north  to  Phoenicia  and  Palestine  in  the  south, 
such  higher  culture,  such  philosophical  study 
as  there  were  came  more  and  more  under  the 
influence  of  Greek  ideas,  particularly  those  of 
the  Stoic  School,  whose  founder  and  chief 
teacher  (it  should  never  be  forgotten)  had 
been  a  Semite,  born  some  three  hundred 
years  before  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  The  Hel- 
lenized  University  of  Tarsus,  which  educated 
Saul,  and  the  Hellenistic  party  in  Palestine, 
whose  desire  to  make  Jerusalem  a  southern 
Antioch  brought  on  the  Maccabaean  struggle, 
both  owed  in  a  measure  their  being 
and  their  continued  vitality  to  the  exist- 
ence and  larger  growth  of  Antioch  on  the 
Orontes. 

But  Phoenicia  and  Palestine  owed  as  much 
of  their  Hellenism  (perhaps  more)  to  another 
Hellenized  city  and  another  Macedonian 
dynasty — ^to  Alexandria  and  to  the  Ptolemies. 
Because    the    short    Maccabaean    period    of 


EPILOGUE  245 

Palestinian  history,  during  which  a  Seleucid 
did  happen  to  be  holding  all  Syria,  is  very  well 
and  widely  known,  it  is  apt  to  be  forgotten 
that,  throughout  almost  all  other  periods  of 
the  Hellenistic  Age,  southern  Syria,  that  is 
Palestine  and  Phoenicia  as  well  as  Cyprus  and 
the  Levant  coast  right  round  to  Pamphylia, 
was  under  the  political  domination  of  Egypt. 
The  first  Ptolemy  added  to  his  province  some 
of  these  Asiatic  districts  and  cities,  and  in 
particular  Palestine  and  Coele-Syria,  very  soon 
after  he  had  assumed  command  of  Egypt,  and 
making  no  secret  of  his  intention  to  retain 
them,  built  a  fleet  to  secure  his  end.  He 
knew  very  well  that  if  Egypt  is  to  hold  in 
permanency  any  territory  outside  Africa, 
she  must  be  mistress  of  the  sea.  After  a 
brief  set-back  at  the  hands  of  Antigonus'  son, 
Ptolemy  made  good  his  hold  when  the  father 
was  dead;  and  Cyprus  also  became  definitely 
his  in  294.  His  successor,  in  whose  favour 
he  abdicated  nine  years  later,  completed  the 
conquest  of  the  mainland  coasts  right  round 
the  Levant  at  the  expense  of  Seleucus'  heir. 
In  the  event,  the  Ptolemies  kept  almost  all 
that  the  first  two  kings  of  the  dynasty  had 


246  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

thus  won  until  they  were  supplanted  by  Rome, 
except  for  an  interval  of  a  little  more  than 
fifty  years  from  199  to  about  145 ;  and  even 
during  the  latter  part  of  this  period  south 
Syria  was  under  Egyptian  influence  once 
more,  though  nominally  part  of  the  tottering 
Seleucid  realm. 

The  object  pursued  by  the  Macedonian 
kings  of  Egypt  in  conquering  and  holding  a 
thin  coastal  fringe  of  mainland  outside  Africa 
and  certain  island  posts  from  Cyprus  to  the 
Cyclades  was  plainly  commercial,  to  get  control 
of  the  general  Levant  trade  and  of  certain 
particular  supplies  (notably  ship-timber)  for 
their  royal  port  of  Alexandria.  The  first 
Ptolemy  had  well  understood  why  his  master 
had  founded  this  city  after  ruining  Tyre,  and 
why  he  had  taken  so  great  pains  both  earlier 
and  later  to  secure  his  Mediterranean  coasts. 
Their  object  the  Ptolemies  obtained  suffi- 
ciently, although  they  never  eliminated  the 
competition  of  the  Rhodian  republic  and 
had  to  resign  to  it  the  command  of  the 
JEgean  after  the  battle  of  Cos  in  246.  But 
Alexandria  had  already  become  a  great 
Semitic  as  well  as  Grecian  city,  and  continued 


EPILOGUE  247 

to  be  so  for  centuries  to  come.  The  first 
Ptolemy  is  said  to  have  transplanted  to 
Egypt  many  thousands  of  Jews  who  quickly 
reconciled  themselves  to  their  exile,  if  indeed 
it  had  ever  been  involuntary;  and  how 
large  its  Jewish  population  was  by  the  reign 
of  the  second  Ptolemy  and  how  open  to 
Hellenic  influence,  may  be  illustrated  suffi- 
ciently by  the  fact  that  at  Alexandria,  during 
that  reign,  the  Hebrew  scriptures  were  trans- 
lated into  Greek  by  the  body  of  Semitic 
scholars  which  has  been  known  since  as 
the  Septuagint.  Although  it  was  consistent 
Ptolemaic  policy  not  to  countenance  Hellenic 
proselytism,  the  inevitable  influence  of  Alex- 
andria on  south  Syria  was  stronger  than  that 
consciously  exerted  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes 
or  any  other  Seleucid ;  and  if  Phoenician  cities 
liad  become  homes  of  Hellenic  science  and 
philosophy  by  the  middle  of  the  third  century, 
and  if  Yeshua  or  Jason,  High  Priest  of  Jehovah, 
when  he  applied  to  his  suzerain  a  hundred 
years  later  for  leave  to  make  Jerusalem  a 
Greek  city,  had  at  his  back  a  strong  party 
anxious  to  wear  hats  in  the  street  and  nothing 
at  all  in  the  gymnasium,  Alexandria  rather 


248  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

than  Antioch  should  have  the  chief  credit — or 
chief  blame  ! 

Before,  however,  all  this  blending  of  Semitic 
religiosity  with  Hellenic  philosophical  ideas, 
and  with  something  of  the  old  Hellenic  man- 
suetude,  which  had  survived  even  under 
Macedonian  masters  to  modify  Asiatic  minds, 
could  issue  in  Christianity,  half  the  East,  with 
its  dispersed  heirs  of  Alexander,  had  passed 
under  the  common  and  stronger  yoke  of  Rome. 
Ptolemaic  Alexandria  and  Seleucid  Antioch 
had  prepared  Semitic  ground  for  seed  of  a 
new  religion,  but  it  was  the  wide  and  sure 
peace  of  the  Roman  Empire  that  brought  it 
to  birth  and  gave  it  room  to  grow.  It  was 
to  grow,  as  all  the  world  knows,  westward  not 
eastward,  making  patent  by  its  first  successes 
and  by  its  first  failures  how  much  Hellenism 
had  gone  to  the  making  of  it.  The  Asian  map 
of  Christianity  at  the  end,  say,  of  the  fourth 
century  of  the  latter's  existence,  will  show  it 
very  exactly  bounded  by  the  limits  to  which 
the  Seleucid  Empire  had  carried  Greeks  in  any 
considerable  body,  and  the  further  limits  to 
which  the  Romans,  who  ruled  effectively  a 
good    deal    left    aside    by  their   Macedonian 


EPILOGUE  249 

predecessors — much  of  central  and  eastern 
Asia  Minor  for  example,  and  all  Armenia — 
had  advanced  their  Grseco-Roman  subjects. 

Beyond  these  bounds  neither  Hellenism  nor 
Christianity  was  fated  in  that  age  to  strike  deep 
roots  or  bear  lasting  fruit.  The  Farther  East 
— ^the  East,  that  is  to  say,  beyond  Euphrates 
— remained  unreceptive  and  intolerant  of 
both  influences.  We  have  seen  how  almost  all 
of  it  had  fallen  away  from  the  Seleucids  many 
generations  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  when  a 
ring  of  principalities,  Median,  Parthian,  Per- 
sian, Nabathaean,  had  emancipated  the  heart 
of  the  Orient  from  its  short  servitude  to  the 
West;  and  though  Rome,  and  Byzantium 
after  her,  would  push  the  frontier  of  effective 
European  influence  somewhat  eastward  again, 
their  Hellenism  could  never  capture  again  that 
heart  which  the  Seleucids  had  failed  to  hold. 
This  is  not  to  say  that  nothing  of  Hellenism 
passed  eastward  of  Mesopotamia  and  made  an 
abiding  mark.  Parthian  and  Sassanian  art, 
the  earlier  Buddhist  art  of  north-western 
India  and  Chinese  Turkestan,  some  features 
even  of  early  Mohammedan  art,  and  some,  too, 
of  early  Mohammedan  doctrine  and  imperial 


250  THE  ANCIENT   EAST 

policy,  disprove  any  sweeping  assertion  that 
nothing  Greek  took  root  beyond  the  bounds  of 
the  Roman  Empire.  But  it  was  very  httle  of 
Hellenism  and  not  at  all  its  essence.  We  must 
not  be  deceived  by  mere  borrowings  of  exotic 
things  or  momentary  appreciations  of  foreign 
luxuries.  That  the  Parthians  were  witnessing 
a  performance  of  the  Bacchse  of  Euripides, 
when  the  head  of  hapless  Crassus  was  brought 
to  Ctesiphon,  no  more  argues  that  they  had  the 
Western  spirit  than  our  taste  for  Chinese 
curios  or  Japanese  plays  proves  us  informed 
with  the  spirit  of  the  East. 

The  East,  in  fine,  remained  the  East.  It  was 
so  little  affected  after  all  by  the  West  that  in 
due  time  its  religiosity  would  be  pregnant  with 
yet  another  religion,  antithetical  to  Hellenism, 
and  it  was  so  little  weakened  that  it  would  win 
back  again  all  it  had  lost  and  more,  and  keep 
Hither  Asia  in  political  and  cultural  inde- 
pendence of  the  West  until  our  own  day.  If 
modern  Europe  has  taken  some  parts  of  the 
gorgeous  East  in  fee  which  were  never  held 
by  Macedonian  or  Roman,  let  us  remember 
in  our  pride  of  race  that  almost  all  that  the 
Macedonians  and  the  Romans  did  hold  in 
Asia  has  been  lost  to  the  West  ever  since. 


EPILOGUE  251 

Europe  may  and  probably  will  prevail  there 
again;  but  since  it  must  be  by  virtue  of  a 
civilization  in  whose  making  a  religion  born 
of  Asia  has  been  the  paramount  indispensable 
factor,  will  the  West  even  then  be  more 
creditor  than  debtor  of  the  East  ? 


NOTE  ON  BOOKS 

The  authorities  cited  at  the  end  of  Prof.  J.  L.  Myres'  Dawn 
of  History  (itself  an  authority),  in  the  Home  University 
Library,  are  to  a  great  extent  suitable  for  those  who  wish  to 
read  more  widely  round  the  theme  of  the  present  volume, 
since  those  {e.  g.  the  geographical  works  given  in  Dawn  of 
History,  p.  253,  paragraph  2)  which  are  not  more  or  less 
essential  preliminaries  to  a  study  of  the  Ancient  East  at  any 
period,  mostly  deal  with  the  historic  as  well  as  the  pre- 
historic age.  To  spare  readers  reference  to  another  volume, 
however,  I  will  repeat  here  the  most  useful  books  in  Prof. 
Myres'  list,  adding  at  the  same  time  certain  others,  some 
of  which  have  appeared  since  the  issue  of  his  volume. 

For  the  history  of  the  whole  region  in  the  period  covered 
by  my  volume,  E.  Meyer's  Geschichte  Alterthums,  of  a  new 
edition  of  which  a  French  translation  is  in  progress  and  has 
already  been  partly  issued,  is  the  most  authoritative.  Sir  G. 
Maspero's  Histoire  ancienne  des  peuphs  de  VOrient  classique 
(English  translation  in  3  vols,  under  the  titles  The  Dawn  of 
Civilization  (Egypt  and  Ghaldeea) ;  The  Struggle  of  the  Nations 
(Egypt,  Syria,  and  Assyria);  The  Passing  of  the  Empires) 
is  still  valuable,  but  rather  out  of  date.  There  has  appeared 
recently  a  more  modern  and  handy  book  than  either,  Mr- 
H.  R.  Hall's  The  Ancient  History  of  the  Near  East  (1913),  which 
gathers  up,  not  only  what  was  in  the  books  by  Mr.  Hall  and 
Mr.  King  cited  by  Prof.  Myres,  but  also  the  contents  of  Meyer's 
and  Maspero's  books,  and  others,  and  the  results  of  more 
recent  research,  in  some  of  which  the  author  has  taken  part. 
This  book  includes  in  its  scope  both  Egypt  and  the  iEgean 
area>  besides  Western  Asia. 

252 


NOTE   ON   BOOKS  253 

For  the  special  history  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  and  their 
Empires,  R.  W.  Rogers'  History  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria, 
2  vols.,  has  been  kept  up  to  date  and  is  the  most  convenient 
summary  for  an  English  reader.  H.  Winckler's  History  of 
Babylonia  and  Assyria  (translated  from  the  German  by 
J.  A.  Craig,  1907)  is  more  brilliant  and  suggestive,  but  needs 
to  be  used  with  more  caution.  A.  T.  Olmsiead's  Western 
Asia  in  the  Days  of  8argon  of  Assyria  (1908)  is  an  instructive 
study  of  the  Assyrian  Empire  at  its  height. 

For  the  Hittite  Empire  and  civilization  J.  Garstang's  The 
Land  of  the  Hittites  (1910)  is  the  best  recent  book  which  aims 
at  being  comprehensive.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
this  subject  is  in  the  melting-pot  at  present,  that  excavations 
now  in  progress  have  added  greatly  to  the  available  evidence, 
and  that  very  few  of  the  Boghazkeui  archives  were  published 
when  Garstang's  book  was  issued.  D.  G.  Hogarth's  articles 
on  the  Hittites,  in  Enc.  Brit,  and  Enc.  Brit.  Year-book,  sum- 
marize some  more  recent  research;  but  there  is  no  com- 
pendium of  Hittite  research  which  is  really  up  to  date. 

For  Semitic  Syrian  history,  Rogers  and  Winckler,  as  cited 
above,  will  probably  be  found  sufficient;  and  also  for  the 
Urartu  peoples.  For  Western  Asia  Minor  and  the  Greeks, 
besides  T>.  G.  Hogarth's  Ionia  and  the  East,  the  new  edition 
of  Beloch's  Griechische  Geschichte  gives  all,  and  more  than  all, 
that  the  general  reader  will  require.  If  German  is  a  difficulty 
to  him,  ho  must  turn  to  J.  B.  Bury's  History  of  Greece  and 
to  the  later  part  of  Hall's  Ancient  History  of  the  Near  East,  cited 
above.  For  Alexander's  conquest  he  can  go  to  J.  Karst, 
Geschichte  des  hdlenistischen  Zeitalters,  Vol.  I  (1901),  B.  Niese, 
Geschichte  der  griechischen  und  makedonischen  Staaten  (1899), 
or  D.  G.  Hogarth,  Philip  and  Alexander  of  Macedron  (1897); 
but  the  great  work  of  J.  G.  Droysen,  Das  Hellenismus  (French 
translation),  lies  behind  all  these. 

Finally,  the  fourth  English  volume  of  A.  Holm's  History 
of  Greece  (1898)  and  E.  R.  Be  van's  House  of  Seleucus  (1902) 
will  supply  most  that  is  known  of  the  Hellenistic  Age  in 
Asia. 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


This  index  only  includes  selected  names.    The  principal  subjects 
must  be  sought  by  means  of  the  sectional  headings. 


Adadnihari  III,  72,  79,  82,  88 
Agesilaus,  196,  198,  200,  207 
Ahab,  17,  81 
Alexander  (the  Great),  12,  167, 

194,  208  ff.,  218  flf.,  235  flf. 
Alexandria    (Egyi>t),    158,    214, 

242  flf. 
Alyattes,  141,  164 
Amanus    Mts.,    16,    68,    90    ff., 

212 
Amarna,  26,  30,  53 
Amenhetep  in,  32,  34 
Aaienhetep  IV  (Akhenaten),  34 
Amorites  56 
Anshan,  160  f. 
Antigonus,  220  f.,  234,  245 
Antioch    (on    Orontes),  242    ff., 

248 
Antiochus  I  (Soter),  223 
Antiochus  IV  (Epiphanes),  237, 

243,  247 
AraiHieans,  41,  52,  54,  56  f.,  65, 

67,  77,  79,  80  flf.,  173 
Araxes,  R.,  167,  168 
Arbela,  72,  216  f. 
Ardys,  137 
Artaxerxes,  Mnemon,  187, 190  ff ., 

197,  201  f. 
Artaxerxes,  Ochus,  202 
Arvad  (Aradus),  31,  41 
Ashurbanipal,  96,  98,    114,    128, 

136  f.,  140 
Ashurnatsirpal,  25,    67,    69,    74, 

79  ff.,  102 
Asshur,  40,  61,  72,  102,  104,  115 
Astyages,  162 
Athens,    149   179   f.,     184,    205, 

230 

Balkans,    177,     180,     194,    203, 

205 
Benhadad,  81 
Bithynia,  212,  222 
Boghazkeui,  36,  38,  50 


Calah,  40,  69,  104,  115,  154 
Cambyses,    167,    169,    174,    176, 

196 
Canaanites,  22,  40,  56,  77,  79 
Cappadocia,  15,  26,  42,  45,  89, 

132,  140,  165,  200,  211,  223 
Carcheniish,  38,  43,  59,  80,  86, 

121,  133,  158 
Caria,  48,  136,  139,  156,  166,  176. 

185,  187,  200,  207,  210 
Cartilage,  154 

Chald^^cans,  77,  79, 101, 119, 147 
Christianity,  240,  244,  248 
Cimmerians  -  (Gimirrai),    75,    97, 

118,  129,  135,  137  f.,  141 
Clearchus,  197,  199 
Colophon,  48,  136,  143,  16^ 
Cos,  150,  246 
Cru'sus,  138,  164  ff. 
Ctesias,  150,  161,  190  f. 
Cunaxa,  188,  197,  199 
Cyclades,  180,  246 
Cyme,  48,  99 
Cyprus,  93,  107,   130,   146,   153, 

157,   176,  187,  197,  202,  239, 

245  f. 
Cyrene,  176,  214 
Cyrus,  160  fl.,  166  ff.,  172,  174, 

192 
Cyrus  (the  younger),  187  fl.,  195, 

196,  199  f. 

Damascus,  16,  52,  57,  67,  68,  80, 

84,  87,  102,  105,  111 
Darius  (Codomannus),  212  ff. 
Darius  (Hystaspis),  150,  167,  169, 

173,  177  ff.,  192 
Darius  (Nothus),  196 
David,  57,  82 
Dugdamme  (Lygdamis),  129 

Ecbatana,  122  ff.,  176,  217 
Elam,   28,   40,   64,   76,   79,   110, 
114,  117,  125,  160  fl.,  177 


254 


INDEX  OF   PROPER   NAMES     255 


Spheaus,   99,   143  ff.,   146,   154. 

164,  228,v243 
EsarhaddoD,  112 
Euphrates,  R.,  20,  59,  67,  80,  84, 

113,   119,   126,   129,   166,   177, 

187,  190,  225,  249 

Galatia,  222 
Gordion,  211 
(iygea  (Guggu),  136  f .,  140,  151 

Halicarnassus,  185,  200,  210,  211 
Halys,    R.,    124,    127,    133,    160, 

163,  165 
Hamath,  16,  52,  57,  81,  82,  91 
Hammurabi,  24,  114 
Harrau,  60,  85,  123 
llatt)  (Hittites),   15,  26,  28,   32, 

34   ft-.,   41,   43,   45,   47,    50   f., 

79,  96,  133,  157,  165 
Hazael,  81 
Heraclida,  49,  96 
Hermus,  R.,  132,  165 
Herodotus,    10,    49,    124,    129, 

137  fl.,  142,  150  &.,  158,  163  f„ 

166 
Hittites.     See  Hatti 
Hyksos,  22,  30 

India,  215,  228,  239 

Ionia,   47,    137   f.,    145,    152   f., 

164  ff.,  178  fif.,  181,  185,  187, 

200,  229 
Issus,  126,  212 

Jehu,  69,  84 

Jerusalem,    57,    109,    111,    121, 

160,  172,  244,  247 
Jews   (Hebrews,    Habiri),  56  f., 

147,  171  ff.,  214,  247 
Jordan,  R.,  24,  56  f, 
Josiah,  120 

Kadesh,  31 

Karkar,  81,  87,  91 

Kas,  50,  89 

Kassites,  28,  30,  32 

Khalflia,  74,  75  (and  see  Urartu) 

Khalman  (Aleppo),  87 

Khani,  41,  60 

Khanigalbat,  89,  94 

Kue,  51,  91,  129,  130,  133 

Kummukh  (Commagene),  51,  129 

Kurdistan,  18,  60,  190 

Kyaxares,  120  flf.,  126,  141,  162 

Maccabees,  237,  244 
Macedonia,  13,  180,  194,  203  ff„ 
218  ff.,  234  ff. 


Malatia  (Milid,  Melitene),  74,  89. 

109 
Megiddo,  31,  120 
Memphis,  112,  117,  151  f. 
Mermnads,  116,  141 
Miletus,  48,  99,  137,  144  f .,  151  f., 

164,  166,  178  f.,  185,  210  f. 
Minoans    (iEgean     Civilization), 

44,  47,  54,  94,  155,  203 
Mita>  (Midas  ?),  45,  96,  132  ff. 
Mitanni,  32,  41,  46,  60 
Mxishlci  (Moschi),  38,  41,  45  ff., 

50  f.,  60,  65,  93,  96  ff.,  132  f., 

141 
Mysia,  146,  200 

Nabonidus,  123,  166 
Nabopolassar,  119 
Nairi,  75,  105 
Naukratis,  151  f. 
Nebuchadnezzar  I,  28,  63 
Nebuchadnezzar     II,     91,     119, 

121  ff.,  128,  160,  172,  179 
Necho,  120 
Nineveh,  40,  60,  104,  108,  147, 

158,  170 

Omri,  83 

Orontes,   R.,   81,   87,    167,   229, 

242 
Oxus,  R.,  168,  215 

Pamphylia,  146,  179,  181,  245 

Paphlagonia,  200,  212,  222 

Parmenio,  208,  209 

Partliians,  242,  243,  249,  250 

Pasargadse,  176,  191 

Pergamum,  222,  243 

Phihp,  204  ff.,  216 

Philistines  (Pulesti),  44,  55,  109 

Phraortes,  162 

Pisidia,  44,  48,  189 

Pitru,  85,  88 

Pontus,  142,  200,  211,  223 

Psammetichus,  117,  120,  136,  151 

Ptolemy     I     (Lagus),     220     ff., 

237  ff.,  245,  247 
Ptolemy  II  (Philadelphus).  247 

Rameses  II,  35,  43 

Rameses  III,  43 

Rhodes,  48,  144,  156,  222,  246 

Sajur,  R.,  59,  84,  86 
Samaria,  53,  69,  84, 117, 172 
Sandan,  49,  51,  92 
Sangarius,  R.  (Sakaria),  95,  132, 


256     INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Sardes,  49,  136  ff.,  140,  160,  165, 

179,  188,  196,  243 
Sargon  (of  Akkad),  22 
Sargon  III,  98,  106  fif.,  117,  128, 

130,  133 
Saul  (King),  57 
Saul  of  Tarsus,  239,  244 
Scyths,  75, 118  tf .,  135, 137, 162  f., 

167,  177 
Sea  Land,  27,  63,  79 
Seleucia(on  Tigris),  229,  243 
Seleucus,  167,  220  ff.,  234 
Sennacherib,    110  fi.,    115,    128, 

130,  189 
Shalmaneser  I,  41,  66,  69 
Shalmaneser  n,  67  ff.,  77,  79  fl., 

103,  128,  179 
Shalmaneser  IV,  111 
Shamal,  16,  52,  53 
Sheshenk,  65 
Sidon,  156,  202 
Sinai,  34 

Smyrna,  48,  95,  137,  142,  164 
Solomon,  65,  82 
Sparta,  153,  157,  164,  186,  191, 

198,  206,  230 
Subbiluliuma,  36 
Sumerians,  22,  2£,  40,  63 
Susa,  161,  169  fl.,  190,  196,  198, 

201,  217 
Syennesis,  92,  189 

Tabal,  50,  89,  91  fl.,  94,  109,  129, 

133,  141 
Tahpanhes  (Defenneh),  151  ff. 


Tarsus,  49,  68,  91  fl.,  102,  128  ff., 

189,  239 
Tchakaray,  44,  55 
Teos,  46,  143 
Thebes  (Egypt),  112,  117 
Thebes  (Greece),  206,  207 
Thothmes  I,  31 
Thothmes  III,  29  fl. 
Tiglath  Pileser  I,  41,  44,  46,  50, 

60,  66,  69,  85,  93 
Tiglath    Pileser    III,     103     fl., 

107 
Tigris,  R.,  20,  27,   71,   73,   104, 

120,  159,  167 
Til-Barsip,  59,  67,  84 
Tirhakah,  112 
Tyana,  109 
Tyre,  58,  102,  109,  111,  114,  121, 

130,  154  ff.,  197,  213,  246 

Ur,  22,  140 

Urartu,  18,  60,  65,  73  ff.,   105, 

108,  118,  126 
Urmia,  L.,  76,  108 

Van,  68,  74,  105,  108.  118 

Washasha,  44,  55 

Xenophon, 150,  188  ff. 
Xerxes,  180,  182 

Zagros  Mts.,  68,  75,  108, 118 

Zeno,  239 

Zoroastrians,  76, 147,  191 


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and  structure,  its  geological  history,  the  first  appearance  of  life, 
and  its  influence  upon  the  globe. 

56.  MAN :  A  HISTORY  OF  THE  HUMAN  BODY.  By  A.  Keith,  M.  D., 
Hunterian  Professor,  Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  London.  Shows 
how  the  human  body  developed. 

74.  NERVES.  By  David  Fraser  Harris,  M.  D.,  Professor  of  Physi- 
ology, Dalhousie  University,  Halifax.  Explains  in  non-technical 
language  the  place  and  powers  of  the  nervous  system. 

2L  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SCIENCE.  By  Prof.  J.  Arthur  Thomson, 
Science  Editor  of  the  Home  University  Library.  For  those  un- 
acquainted with  the  scientific  volumes  in  the  series,  this  would 
prove  an  excellent  introduction. 

14.  EVOLUTION.  By  Prof.  J.  Arthur  Thomson  and  Prof.  Patrick 
Geddes.  Explains  to  the  layman  what  the  title  means  to  the 
scientific  world. 

23.  ASTRONOMY.  By  A.  R.  Hinks,  Chief  Assistant  at  the  Cam- 
bridge Observatory.  "Decidedly  original  in  substance,  and  the 
most  readable  and  informative  little  book  on  modern  astronomy 
we  have  seen  for  a  long  time." — Nature. 

24.  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH.  By  Prof.  W.  F.  Barrett,  formerly  Pres- 
ident of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 

9.  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  PLANTS.  By  Dr.  D.  H.  Scott,  President 
of  the  Linnean  Society  of  London.  The  story  of  the  develop- 
ment of  flowering  plants,  from  the  earliest  zoological  times,  un- 
locked from  technical  language. 


43.  MATTER  AND  ENERGY.  By  F.  Soddy,  Lecturer  in  Physical 
Chemisiry  and  Radioactivity,  University  of  Glasgow.  "Brilliant. 
Can  hardly  be  surpassed.  Sure  to  attract  attention." — Nen> 
York  Sun. 

41.  PSYCHOLOGY,  THE  STUDY  OF  BEHAVIOUR.    By  William  Mc- 

Doagall,  of  Oxford.  A  well  digested  summary  of  the  essen- 
tials of  the  science  put  in  excellent  literary  form  by  a  leading 
authority. 

42.  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  PHYSIOLOGY.    By  Prof.  J.  G.  McKendrick. 

A  compact  statement  by  the  Emeritus  Professor  at  Glasgow,  for 
uninstructed  readers. 

37.  ANTHROPOLOGY.  By  R.  R.  Marett,  Reader  in  Social  An- 
thropology, Oxford.  Seeks  to  plot  out  and  sum  up  the  general 
series  of  changes,  bodily  and  mental,  undergone  by  man  in  the 
course  of  history.  "Excellent.  So  enthusiastic,  so  clear  and  witty, 
and  so  well  adapted  to  the  general  reader." — American  Library 
Association  BooJ^list. 

17.  CRIME  AND  INSANITY.  By  Dr.  C.  Mercler,  author  of  "Test 
Book  of  Insanity,"  etc. 

12.     THE  ANIMAL  WORLD.    By  Prof.  F.  W.  Gamble. 

15.     INTRODUCTION   TO   MATHEMATICS.     By   A.    N.   Whitehead, 

author  of  "Universal  Algebra." 

PHILOSOPHY  AND  RELIGION. 

69.     A  HISTORY  OF  FREEDOM  OF  THOUGHT.    By  John  B.  Bury, 

M.  A.,  LL.  D.,  Regius  Professor  of  Modern  History  in  Cam- 
bridge University.  Summarizes  the  history  of  the  long  struggle 
between  authority  and  reason  and  of  the  emergence  of  the  prin- 
ciple that  coercion  of  opinion  is  a  mistake. 

96.  A  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY.  By  Clement  C.  J.  Webb, 
Oxford. 

35.     THE    PROBLEMS    OF    PHILOSOPHY.      By    Bertrand    Russell, 

Lecturer  and  Late  Fellow,  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

60.     COMPARATIVE    RELIGION.      By    Prof.    J.    Estlin    Carpenter. 

"One  of  the  few  authorities  on  this  subject  compares  all  the  re- 
ligions to  see  what  they  have  to  offer  on  the  great  themes  of  re- 
ligion."— Christian  Wor\  and  Evangelist. 

44.  BUDDHISM.  By  Mrs.  Rhys  Davids,  Lecturer  on  Indian  Philoso- 
phy, Manchester. 

46.  ENGLISH  SECTS:  A  HISTORY  OF  NONCONFORMITY.  By  W.B. 
Selbie,     Principal  of  Manchester  College,  Oxford. 


55.    MISSIONS:    THEIR  RISE  AND  DEVELOPMENT.    By  Mrs.  Man- 

dell  Creighton,  author  of  "History  of  Englard."  The  author 
seeks  to  prove  that  missions  have  done  more  to  civilize  the  world 
than  any  other  human  agency. 

52.  ETHICS.  By  G.  E.  Moore,  Lecturer  in  Moral  Science,  Cam- 
bridge. Discusses  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong,  and  the  whys 
and  wherefores. 

65.  THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  By  George  F. 
Moore,  Professor  of  the  History  of  Religion,  Harvard  Uni- 
versity. "A  popular  work  of  the  highest  order.  Will  be  profit- 
able to  anybody  who  cares  enough  about  Bible  study  to  read  a 
serious  book  on  the  subject." — American  Journal  of  Theology, 

88.    RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  BETWEEN  OLD  AND  NEW  TESTA- 

MENTS.  By  R.  H.  Charles,  Canon  of  Westminster.  Shows  how 
religious  and  ethical  thought  between  180  B.  C.  and  100  A.  D. 
grew  naturally  into  that  of  the  New  Testament. 

50.    THE  MAKING  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.    By  B.  W.  Bacon, 

Professor  of  New  Testament  Criticism,  Yale.  An  authoritative 
summary  of  the  results  of  modern  critical  research  with  regard  to 
the  origins  of  the  New  Testament. 

SOCIAL  SCIENCE. 

91.  THE  NEGRO.  By  W.  E.  Burghardt  DuBois,  author  of  "Souls  of 
Black  Folks,"  etc.  A  history  of  the  black  man^  in  Africa, 
America  or  wherever  else  his  presence  has  been  or  is  important. 

77.  CO-PARTNERSHIP  AND  PROFIT  SHARING.  By  Anenrin  Wil- 
liams, Chairman,  Executive  Committee,  International  Co-opera- 
tive Alliance,  etc.  Explains  the  various  types  of  co-partnership 
or  profit-sharing,  or  both,  and  gives  details  of  the  arrangements 
now  in   force  in  many  of  the  great  industries. 

99.  POLITICAL  THOUGHT:  THE  UTILITARIANS.  FROM  BENT- 
HAM  TO  J.  S.  MILL.    By  William  L.  P.  Davidson. 

98.  POLITICAL  THOUGHT:  FROM  HERBERT  SPENCER  TO  THE 
PRESENT  DAY.    By  Ernest  Barker,  M.  A. 

79.  UNEMPLOYMENT.  By  A.  C.  Pigou,  M.  A.,  Professor  of  Political 
Economy  at  Cambridge.  The  meaning,  measurement,  distribution, 
and  effects  of  unemployment,  its  relation  to  wages,  trade  fluctua- 
tions, and  disputes,  and  some  proposal  of  rpjnedy  or  reli«f. 


80.  COMMON-SENSE  IN  LAW.  By  Prof.  Paul  Vinograaoff.  D.  C.  L., 
LL.  D.  Social  and  Legal  Rules — Legal  Rights  and  Duties — 
Facts  and  Acts  in  Law — Legislation — Custom — ^Judicial  Prece- 
dents— Equity — The  Law  of  Nature. 

49.    ELEMENTS   OF   POLITICAL   ECONOMY.     By  S.  J.   Ckapman, 

Professor  of  Political  Economy  and  Dean  of  Faculty  of  Com- 
merce and  Administration,  University  of  Manchester. 

11.  THE  SCIENCE  OF  WEALTH.  By  J.  A.  Holison,authorof  "Prob- 
lems  of  Poverty."  A  study  of  the  structure  and  working  of  the 
modern  business  world. 

1.    PARLIAMENT.     ITS  HISTORY,  CONSTITUTION,  AND  PRAC- 
TICE.     By  Sir  Courlenay  P.  Ilbert,   Clerk  of  the  House  of  Com- 


16.  LIBERALISM.  By  Prof.  L.  T.  Hobhouse,  author  of  "Democracy 
and  Reaction."  A  masterly  philosophical  and  historical  review  of 
the  subject. 

5.  THE  STOCK  EXCHANGE.  By  F.  W.  Hirst,  Editor  of  the  London 
Economist.  Reveals  to  the  non-financial  mind  the  facts  about 
investment,  speculation,  and  the  other  terms  which  the  title  sug- 
gests. 

10.    THE    SOCIALIST    MOVEMENT.      By    J.    Ramsay    Macdonald, 

Chairman  of  ihe  British  Labor  Party. 

28.  THE    EVOLUTION    OF    INDUSTRY.      By    D.    H.    MacGregor, 

Professor  of  Political  Economy,  University  of  Leeds.  An  out- 
line of  the  recent  changes  that  have  given  us  the  present  conditions 
of  the  working  classes  and  the  prmciples  involved. 

29.  ELEMENTS  OF  ENGLISH  LAW.     By  W.  M.  Geldart,  Vinerian 

Professor  of  English  Law,  Oxford.  A  simple  statement  of  the 
basic  principles  of  the  English  legal  system  on  which  that  of  the 
United  States  is  based. 

32.  THE  SCHOOL:  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  STUDY  OF  EDU- 
CATION. By  J.  J.  Findlay,  Professor  of  Education,  Manches- 
ter. Presents  the  history,  the  psychological  basis,  and  the  theory 
of  the  school  with  a  rare  power  of  summary  and  suggestion. 

6.  IRISH  NATIONALITY.  By  Mrs.  J.  R.  Green.  A  brilliant  account 
of  the  genius  and  mission  of  the  Irish  people.  "An  entrancing 
work,  and  I  would  advise  every  one  with  a  drop  of  Irish  blood 
in  his  veins  or  a  vein  of  Irish  sympathy  in  his  heart  to  read  it.**-— 
iVea>  York  Times'  RevieVf. 


GENERAL  HISTORY  AND  GEOGRAPHY. 

33.  THE  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.  By  A.  F.  Pollard,  Professor  of 
English  History,  University  of  London. 

95.  BELGIUM.  By  R.  C.  K.  Ensor,  Sometime  Scholar  of  BalHol 
College.  The  geographical,  linguistic,  historical,  artistic  and  lit- 
erary associations. 

100.  POLAND.  By  W.  Alison  Phillips,  University  of  Dublin.  The 
history  of  Poland  with  special  emphasis  upon  the  Polish  questioo 
of  the  present  day. 

34.  CANADA.    By  A.  G.  Bradley. 

72.     GERMANY  OF  TO-DAY.    By  Charles  Tower. 

78.  LATIN  AMERICA.  By  William  R.  Shepherd,  Prof essor  of  Hi«. 
tory,  Columbia.  With  maps.  The  historical,  artistic,  and  com- 
mercial development  of  the  Central  South  American  republics. 

18.  THE  OPENING-UP  OF  AFRICA.  By  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston. 
The  first  living  authority  on  the  subject  tells  how  and  why  the 
"native  races"  went  to  the  various  parts  of  Africa  and  summarizes 
its  exploration  and  colonization. 

19.  THE  CIVILIZATION  OF  CHINA.  By  H.  A.  Giles,  Professor  of 
Chinese,  Cambridge. 

36.  PEOPLES  AND  PROBLEMS  OF  INDIA.  By  Sir  T.  W.  Holderness. 
"The  best  small  treatise  dealing  with  th*  range  of  subjects  fairly 
Indicated  by  the  title." — The  Dial. 

26.     THE  DAWN  OF  HISTORY.    By  J.  L.  Myers,    Prof  essor  of  Ancient 

History,  Oxford. 
92.    THE  ANCIENT  EAST.     By  D.  G.  Hogarth,  M.  A.,  F.  B.  A., 

F.  S.  A.     Connects  with  Prof.  Myers's  "Dawn  of  History"  (No. 

26)    at   about    1000  B.  C.   and   reviews   the  history  of  Assyria, 

Babylon,  Cillcia,  Persia  and  Macedon. 
30.     ROME.    By  W.  Warde  Fowler,   author  of  "Social  Life  at  Rome," 

etc.     "A  masterly  sketch  of  Roman  character  and  what  It  did 

for  the  world." — London  Spectator. 
13.     MEDIEVAL  EUROPE.    By  H.  W.  C.  Davis,    Fellow  at  Ball lol  Col- 

lege,  Oxford,  author  of  "Charlemagne,"  etc. 
3.    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.    By  Hillaire  Belloc. 
57.     NAPOLEON.     By  H.  A.  L.  Fisher,    Vlce-Chanc«llor  of  Sheffield 

University.     Author  of  "The  Republican  Tradition  in  Europe." 

20.  HISTORY  OF  OUR  TIME  (1885-1911).  By  C.  P.  Gooch, 
A  "moving  picture"  of  the  world  since  1885. 

22.  THE  PAPACY  AND  MODERN  TIMES.  By  Rev.  William  Barry, 
D.  D.,  author  of  "The  Papal  Monarchy."  etc.  The  story  of  the 
rise  and  fall  of  the  Temporal  Power. 


4.    A  SHORT  jfllSTORY  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE.    By  G.  H.  PerrJs, 

author  of  "Russia  in  Revolution,"  etc. 

S4.    THE  NAVY  AND  SEA  POWER.     By  David  Hannay,    author   of 
"Short  History  of  the  Royal  Navy,"  etc.     A  brief  history  o    the 
navies,  sea  power,  and  ship  growth  of  all  nations,  includinj. 
rise   and   decline   of   America   on   the   sea,    and   explai. 
present  British  supremacy  thereon. 
8.     POLAR  EXPLORATION.     By  Dr.  W.  S.  Bruce,      Leader    of    the 
"Scotia"  expedition.     Emphasizes  the  resuUs  of  the  expeditions. 

51.  MASTER  MARINERS.  By  John  R.  Spears,  author  of  "The  His- 
tory of  Our  Navy,"  etc.  A  history  of  sea  craft  adventure  from 
th«  earliest  times. 

86.     EXPLORATION  OF  THE  ALPS.    By  Arnold  Lunn,  M.  A. 
7.     MODERN  GEOGRAPHY.    By  Dr.  Marion  Newbigin,    Shows  the  re- 
lation of  physical    features  to  living  things   and  to  some  of  the 
chief  institutions  of  civilization. 

76.  THE  OCEAN.  A  GENERAL  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF 
THE  SEA.  By  Sir  John  Murray,  K.  C.  B.,  Naturalist  H.  M.  S. 
"Challenger,"  1872-1876,  joint  author  of  "The  Depths  of  the 
Ocean,"  etc. 

84.  THE  GROWTH  OF  EUROPE.  By  Granville  Cole,  Professor  of 
Geology,  Royal  College  of  Science,  Ireland.  A  study  of  the 
geology  and  physical  geography  in  connection  with  the  political 
geography. 

AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

47.  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  (1607-1766).  By  Charles  McLean  An- 
drews,    Professor  of  American  History,  Yale. 

82.  THE  WARS  BETWEEN  ENGLAND  AND  AMERICA  (1763-1815). 
By  Theodore  C.  Smith,  Professor  of  American  History,  Wil- 
liams College.  A  history  of  the  period,  with  especial  emphasis 
on  The  Revolution  and  The  War  of  1812. 

67.  FROM  JEFFERSON  TO  LINCOLN  (1815-1860).  By  William 
MacDonald,  Professor  of  History,  Brown  University.  The 
author  makes  the  history  of  this  period  circulate  about  constitu- 
tional ideas  and  slavery  sentiment. 

25.  THE  CIVIL  WAR  (1854-1865.)  By  Frederic  L.  Paxson. 
Professor  of  American  History,  University  of  Wisconsin. 

39.  RECONSTRUCTION  AND  UNION  (1865-1912).  By  Paul  Leiand 
Haworth.     A  History  of  the  United  States  in  cur  own  times. 

OTHER  VOLUMES  IN  PREPARATION 

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